…the “Tangerine-of-future-plans” is a common Tangerine. It is by far the most common kind of Tangerine. But a “Tangerine-of-now” is a rare and wonderful tangerine. It is the holy tangerine.
The Tangerine of Now
Sermons
Claimed
Christianity, like all religions, quite easily becomes a tool for the powerful – but when this happens it is no longer Christianity – it is something else – a form of idolatry.
The essence of Christianity is not power. It is love.
Remembering
Nature is not a place. Nature is both the fiber of our being, and the air, water and earth that sustains it.
So don’t talk about nature as if it is some quaint “view” that we have to preserve for our children’s children.
Reach down and feel the pulse at your wrist.
That rhythm that you feel? That’s nature.
Tremble
We are out in the open… Beneath the wide open sky.
The sky stretches above us into the distance, where the great mountain describes for us the gentle swoop of the horizon… Only moments ago, the darkness of night lifted, and with the rising sun, our hearts also rise, trembling with the hope of a new day.
The Question of the Door
Open, or closed? That is the question of the door. When we shut the door, we ask the person on the other side “who are you?” If we leave the door open, we tell the person on the other side: “come in.”
An open door says “I trust you.”
A closed door says “I’m not sure about you.”
Light
God is not a superstition leftover from more primitive times. God is not the preoccupation of a community of people determined to willfully ignore the demands of the modern world.
No.
God is a way of communication.
Water
When we return to the water source…
We are returning to life.
This truth vibrates at our deepest core.
The Wind
Isabel will spend the next 2 1/2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Indonesia. She has a healthy sense of her own dignity, and she is a good judge of character – so I am confident in her ability to manage this challenge… And yet, I am still her father… and she my daughter.
And so, last Monday, we spent the last day we would spend together for 2 1/2 years.
We climbed Mount Monadnock…
Toward All
… real spiritual death does not come from suffering. James Baldwin says that the real spiritual death comes from hatred.
Of Love
The facilitator of the session asked us to raise our hands if any of us personally knew people who had died of an opioid drug overdose.
Everyone present raised a hand…