Climate Change and the Work of Peace
The day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, we gathered at Lake Junaluska for our seventh annual Interfaith Peace Conference. Our theme this year was “The …
The Gift of Mother Emanuel
Last week Sylvia and I went on a long-planned visit to Charleston, South Carolina, a beautiful and historic city we had not seen in twenty-five years. Founded in 1680, its …
How do you know?
“What do you know?” Who hasn’t uttered this frequent throw-away line in our everyday discourse. Not so usual would be to say “How do you know?” And yet, this could …
Reflections on the Lake Junaluska Peace Conference
Last Sunday we concluded four days devoted to the Lake Junaluska Peace Conference, we have been involved in for the past seven years. This year’s theme was “Longing for Peace/Exploring …
The Great Migration
Like the rest of you I have been trying to get my mind and heart around the explosive migration of refugees from war, political collapse, and drought that has engulfed …
Restoring our Memories, Restoring Ourselves
The work of remembering takes patience, persistence, and an attention to detail. So I am finding out as I painstakingly sort through almost four hundred photographs from my mother’s stay …
Forgiveness
I can’t get it out of my mind and I don’t want to. On June 19, Dylan Roof, the confessed killer of nine people in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal …
Journeying Toward Reconciliation
Last October I wrote about the development of Reconciling Conversations at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville, here in western North Carolina. At the time, we had put together a …
Of Patriots and Matriots
For us Northern Hemisphere folks who follow the Greco-Latinate calendar, this is a time of endings and new beginnings, of passage into darkness and out into light, from the dying …
Reconciling Conversations
Readers of this blog will know that I have spent many years cultivating a form of worship that places the circle of reconciling conversation at the center. This Roundtable Worship, …
Looking for Muhammad
My writing has been completely taken up with completion of my woodworking and spirituality book project with my friend John de Gruchy, who lives near Cape Town. You’re going to …
Kings, Messiahs, and Mandela
After a couple of weeks devoted to moving my website to a new host, I am finally able to reflect with you on two events – one perennial and one …
In Pluribus Nihil
Like so many of you, I am confounded and angered by the government shutdown brought on by irresponsible Congressional Republicans. While the principal players try to resolve this calamity (and …
The Winding Cloth
The electronic revolution increasingly knits us all on planet Earth into a common consciousness, a common memory. It also makes possible an increasing degree of empathy across the barriers of …