By Norman AllenJune 25, 2025“Consecrating art and song, holy book and pilgrim way,quelling floods of tyrant wrong,widening freedom’s sacred sway.”—“Life of Ages,” by Samuel JohnsonOnly one of Rev. Samuel Johnson’s many hymns can be found in Singing the Living Tradition and Sing Out Love, but his lif
By Norman AllenJune 18, 2025“Now on land and sea descending,brings the night its peace profound;let our vesper hymn be blendingwith the holy calm around.”—“Now on Land and Sea Descending,” by Samuel LongfellowI’m forever grateful for the quiet gifts of Rev. Samuel Longfellow, who introduced the prac
By Jolie RockeJune 11, 2025“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” —Rabindranath TagoreEvery Sunday as I enter the sanctuary, I welcome another opportunity to greet congregants with an eclectic tapestry of sound: a blend of piano melodies, choir harmonies, and the strum
By Sarah DuttonJune 4, 2025“…the wren from Carolina buzzedthrough the neighbor’s hedgea line of grace notes I couldn’t even write downmuch less sing.”—Mary Oliver, “The Wren from Carolina”The first time I encountered a grace note was a Johann Strauss waltz in my John W. Schaum piano book. Grace note
By Karishma GottfriedMay 28, 2025“Queer… not as being about who you’re having sex with (that can be a dimension of it), but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent it and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”—bell hooks, 2014I
By Zeb GreenMay 21, 2025“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”–Gospel of Matthew 25:35When I lived in Texas between 2018 and 2023, I frequently went into Mexico to help people who had been deported from the U.S. I
By Takiyah Nur AminMay 14, 2025“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends…”–The BeatlesSo many people I know want to do better, be different, quit smoking, what have you. I always wonder what kind of community they have to help them. For example, maybe you want to be a different mama than the
By Cara Stultz CostelloMay 7, 2025“For we are what God has made us, created… for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”—Ephesians 2:10 (NRSV)In stillness, the red-winged blackbird looks like any other common creature: coal-dark, small, shaped as birds are shaped, tucked in
By Manish Mishra-MarzettiApril 30, 2025“Love is stronger than fear, but only if we participate in love.”—Amy Julia BeckerSpring Break. I’m with my family in Orlando and my child needs to go to urgent care. As an Asian-American in a gay marriage, with adopted kids who are Black, I had booked this Flo
By James ClarkeApril 23, 2025“We’re innocent, but the weight of the world is on our shoulders We’re innocent, but the battles left for us are far from over…”—The Offspring, from the song “Not the One” (YouTube)I first heard The Offspring’s Smash album when I was fourteen, and it blew me away. As a c
