Category: Right living

End-of-year giving: good choices and a particular option

I stand for fiscal responsibility in non-profit organizations. Money entrusted for the common good should be used wisely and efficiently. Donors should — and increasingly do — seek out organizations with desirable missions and with the capacity to work efficiently. I’ve been critical of churches that function like clubs as betraying this calculus; why, for… Continue reading End-of-year giving: good choices and a particular option

A friendly letter from Peter Morales

I’m encouraged by a change of tone in the new Unitarian Universalist Association administration. Peter Morales, the new president, has been writing letters to his constituency without them being “pastoral”. This habit of his predecessor — who was never called to be the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Association; no such role exists — grated… Continue reading A friendly letter from Peter Morales

Web media should be accessible, too

Piggybacking on Kim Hampton’s first-things-first approach (do read it) to ability and accessibility, let me humbly ask that all producers of online audio or video media create a text transcript to accompany it. This is a matter of access in these ways: Some people cannot see and other cannot hear. Text allows people to read,… Continue reading Web media should be accessible, too

Quaker “cross cringe” — ah, sounds familiar

Unitarian Universalist Christians use a few terms — Christophobia, cross cringe and ABC (“anything but Christian”) — to describe the reception we get in unfriendly settings. A posting today at QuakerQuaker shows that the problem — or perhaps a like problem — isn’t uniquely Unitarian Universalist. A shame that. Perhaps, too, an opportunity. “Liberal Quaker… Continue reading Quaker “cross cringe” — ah, sounds familiar

Quiet worship in a public place

Anglican priest and blogger Andii Bowsher (Nouslife) outlines a service of worship conducted around a table, say at a cafe or restaurant. The key is low-volume, shared participation. Which isn’t too strange: people hive off to coffee shops for meeting all the time here. I don’t know if I’d come up with what he did,… Continue reading Quiet worship in a public place

Keeping Web sites light

Blogging minister (or ministering blogger) and friend Victoria Weinstein — PeaceBang — noted that she posted only a few pictures from her sabbatical visit in Romania because of the cost of bandwidth. This truth cuts both ways: heavyweight Web sites take a long time to download when the connection is slow. And if the connection… Continue reading Keeping Web sites light

Use your voice, less electricity to save mountains

Cranky Cindy wrote about mountaintop coal mining, and the environmental disaster is causes. Universalist fun fact: the much-reported town deluged by coal ash, Harriman, Tennessee, was the site of the church extension project of the Young People’s Christian Union, a predecessor to Unitarian Universalist young adult ministries. Not-so-fun fact: coal is not clean. It pollutes… Continue reading Use your voice, less electricity to save mountains

“Can my boss do that?”

Interfaith Worker Justice tomorrow launches a Web site called “Can My Boss Do That?” — a worker-oriented resource that uses a question-and-answer format to address labor rights. Some sections are state-specific. The facts can be a bit depressing, at first view. From a design point-of-view, I like how (1) it warns workers that employers might… Continue reading “Can my boss do that?”

“Christmas Under Fire”

For years I have been fascinated by Christmas celebration during wartime, especially British observances during the First and Second World Wars. How do you make merry — should you? — when your lives and civilization are in peril? Keeps things in perspective, I think, now that Christmas has earned excessive and vulgar lows, or (as… Continue reading “Christmas Under Fire”