Explore the Seventh Chapter (Things Fall Apart) of our Congregational Read: What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill. Come prepared to share, so will I. We'll see if we can't do some healing and grow past, or perhaps through, crisis, together. Also, we'll make some space to laugh together with some salty humor on the eve of International Transgender Day of Visibility.

This week is a special episode as I'm joined in the pulpit by Sky Makare, a young woman from the San Gabriel congregation. Tune in as we explore issues of beauty and ugliness, cat calling and the threat of sexual violence, and the many unfairness's and injustices that continue to negatively impact the lives of women in today's America.

Spurred by Texas HB 2548, Chas Moore of Austin Justice Coalition invited me and other community members to a press conference on February 20, 2025. Join me for an exploration of the White Christian Nationalist roots of these anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion bills - and a call to our brothers, sisters, and siblings who identify that way to a deeper relationship with God, the world as it is, and all of us... a relationship that must be the source of our healing.

What does it mean to be a healthy man in today's America? In today's world? Are we providing our young men with prosocial and compassionate ways to express their masculinity - some troubling data suggests not. How do our historical and cultural understandings of masculinity need to change to adapt to feminism, anti-racism, and post-colonialism without simply regressing to patriarchy and supremacy? Join us in this important struggle.

Read the Sixth Chapter (Expanding Our We) of our Congregational Read: What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill. Come prepared to share, so will I. We'll see if we can't do some healing and expand our we, together.

Starting and ending with the Metta Meditation, we'll explore who is worthy of the protections of being human? Is there a threshold beyond which those who are damaged or do damage to others are no longer worthy of human protection?

Join us this week for a colloquy on race through the lens of the magical negro. I am honored to have as partner and co-conspirator in this work - Mr. Spoon. Hear the song never sung & more...

Engage with the World is inspired and named for chapter five of our congregational read for this year, Prentis Hemphill’s book What It Takes To Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World. In it, we struggle with what it means to hold love at the center, with how we so easily and often get it wrong, with the eternal search for a place to stand and a lever to move the world.

We explore the power of story to blind us to the world that is, to remake the world as it wishes to become, and to transform our relationships with one another. 

A good-old-fashioned fire-communion, some Dr. Seuss for the kid in all of us, and some James Baldwin to invite us deeper than we ever wanted to go. That sounds like the recipe for a strong start to the new year. Join us won't you?

...God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time...

This week is a live recording inspired and named for chapter four of our congregational read for this year, Prentis Hemphill’s book What It Takes To Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World. If you, as a podcast listener, would like to read along, we’d love the company. Our plan is to do a chapter a month, usually on the third Sunday of each month - with the podcast coming out the following week.