The Pulpiteer

What is the right relationship between body, mind, emotion, and spirit? And what does any of that have to do with presence? What if these questions aren't two different ones, but one question from two perspectives. What if one pathway to both questions lies upon the path of meditation? Let's explore...

This week is a live recording and it is inspired by (and named after) chapter three of our congregational read for this year, Prentis Hemphill’s book What It Takes To Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World .

This episode is inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass & addresses itself to the American national election that just passed. Special thanks to the Haudenosaunee people for their capacious sharing of the Thanksgiving Address.

What does Sanctuary mean? What do we need from our sanctuary - from our sacred spaces - in this moment? Can they be safe enough for us to complete the dissolution necessary to our transformation? Safe enough to fall all the way apart? Would that allow us to reconfigure ourselves in ways previously unimagined? Do concepts like 'wisdom' and 'stranger' help us in this struggle? Join us and let's find...

This mythological and mystical story comes to us from renowned storyteller Dr. Martin Shaw and is the second in our Smoke Hole series. It is a tale of patience and boldness, of duty and nature's allies, and ultimately about distinguishing between what is essential and what is superfluous. Join us around our imaginary fire as we spin a tale from the troves of old Europe.

This episode is inspired by chapter two of our congregational read for this year, Prentis Hemphill’s book What It Takes To Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World . For those of you who don’t yet know, Prentis Hemphill (They/Them) is unearthing the connections between healing, community accountability and our most inspired visions for social transformation. Prentis is a therapist, so...

Pet Blessing, Georgetown Pride 2024, Hurricanes, Elections, a need to slow down, and we still need to find time to reflect on our Soul Matters topic for the month: Living Love Through the Practice of Deep Listening. That a lot going on, we'll see if we can't find some space to breathe as we contemplate all these things, our perfect storm.

Please join us for a special bonus episode this week, as I have the honor of being interviewed by Sunny (15) and Stella (13), two members of our San Gabriel congregation. From ice cream, to pets, to favorite clothes & time travel - join us for a fun ride.

This mythological and mystical story comes to us from renowned storyteller Dr. Martin Shaw and is the first in our Smoke Hole series. It is a tale of dark energies and bewitchment, power and corruption, of bloodlust and unlikely allies, and ultimately about the victory of the simple and faithful over the complex. Join us around our imaginary fire as we spin a tale from the troves of old Europe.

Based on the Preface and First Chapter (Vision) of our Congregational Read: What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World by Prentis Hemphill. Come listen as we explore and share. We'll see if we can't do some healing and cast a vision, together.

I've given myself a few weeks to begin to digest my experiences at the Orphan Wisdom School in Ontario. So this is the first part of sharing what I learned there.

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it. Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue. – Clearing by Martha Postlewaite

If we subscribe to this progressivist view of history, of evolution, of the unfolding of life in the universe – a view nominally supported by the hearts of the great wisdom traditions, by our own transient observations, and by the findings of science (at least in the human or Earthly near term – perhaps not on the longer galactic time scale). Well, if we subscribe to that – one element of our prog...

We often think of justice work as 'external' - we focus our attention on the parts of cultures and systems and institutions that lie outside of us, outside of our control or influence. But this focus makes two mistakes - first, it presumes that we are not implicated in systems and cultures we choose not to identify with, and second, it fails to recognize that our ability to replace the cul...

This is the third of a three part sermon series based on the benediction. May you find: Questions more Profound than Answers, Vulnerability more Powerful than Strength, and a Peace that Passeth All Understanding.  Is it a peace that is available to us? Even in the midst of the suffering of others? Even in the midst of our own suffering? Is it the answer to suffering, or the antidote, or the cure,...

This is the second of a three part sermon series based on the benediction. May you find: Questions more Profound than Answers, Vulnerability more Powerful than Strength, and a Peace that Passeth All Understanding. And here’s how we’re going to honor it: We tried it scripted, we tackled ‘questions more profound that answers’, now it’s time to go one layer deeper, It’s time for ‘vulnerability more p...

This is the first of a three part sermon series based on the benediction. May you find: Questions more Profound than Answers, Vulnerability more Powerful than Strength, and a Peace that Passeth All Understanding. And here's how we're going to honor it: You Ask, I answer... well, probably more like ponder, speculate, ruminate, you get the idea.

A good covenant is easy to write and hard to practice. What can we do to better live the promises we've already made? How can we honor the spirit of a promise when its literal interpretation shifts from hard to impossible? If a promise can't be kept literally, is it worthless? What do we really owe each other anyway? These questions and more as our struggle continues.

We can't interrupt the transmission of intergenerational trauma without asking deep questions. In the research on play, on imagination, on unconditional love - we begin to see the shape of some similarly deep answers. But can we do the work? Can we relinquish our expectations of conformity and compliance in favor of a world made more chaotic by human expression released from traditional fetter...

In a sequence of five stories from three authors, we'll attempt to find a path through the forest of judgement, into the clearing of showing up for each other, and on to a seemingly mythical land of transcendent connection. Join us won't you? Thanks and acknowledgement to our three authors: Eckhart Tolle, Stephen Jenkinson, and Charles Eisenstein.

 I’m not asking if such a future is possible or plausible or what changes have to happen to bring it about. I’m asking a question about the present, a question about our own social and mental and emotional and spiritual state — I’m asking if we can, through the lens of our imagination, see such a place from here.

Could it be that the best thing about democracy is the part of it that we do the worst? After all, if you look back at the history of the idea, it only really had one serious precondition. A precondition that this country stopped taking seriously as soon as it extended the franchise. Could more attention to this one prerequisite be the linchpin for healing our ailing democratic institutions and cu...

I’ve long struggled to find an MLK Day tradition that I feel does adequate justice to his life and message as a modern day prophet. So, for the first installment in what I hope will become a long standing practice, we will use Dr. King’s spotlight to highlight the message of a lesser known but sympathetically aligned fellow prophet… one whose life was also cut short by intentional violence, dare w...

Who are our dead? Are they a subset of ‘the dead’? Are they a going concern, or just a past with whose echo we must contend? Are there obligations that linger between us, the living, and them, the dead? Do those obligations flow in two directions, or in one? Do these answers inform our approach to our own deaths, or the deaths of those we love? What role does memory, after which this Memorial holi...

This episode is an homage to Easter, which I read as an invitation to struggle with one of the deepest areas of mystery: life, death, & rebirth. I want to share with you some writings from one of my most influential teachers, Stephen Jenkinson. He is author of books like “Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul” & “Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble.” What if the te...