I'm a Unitarian Universalist minister, writer, and (for awhile) broadcaster.
For the present I'm serving as Interim Minister at First Unitarian Church, Orlando. During the previous year I served Unity Church, a UU congregation in North Easton, Massachusetts.
Until April 2006 I served for four years as minister of a congregation in Northampton, in western Massachusetts. Until the summer of 2002 I lived for nine years in the Chicago suburb Oak Park and served Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation, the congregation whose home was designed by an early member, Frank Lloyd Wright, and built between 1905 and 1909. I've also served the Unitarian Church in Bangor, Maine; and on the staff of the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in Boston.
During the first six months of 2001 I enjoyed six months in the UK, divided between Aberdeen, Scotland and London , where, on sabbatical leave, I served British Unitarian congregations. I love to return and visit.
That's my 1846 barn behind me in the photo. It's in Westhampton, in the foothills of the Berkshires. The town has no streetlights: the night sky is a magnificent spectacle. But for the year I've rented it out. I'm on a search for the Next Thing in my life-work. Probably, that's a permanent congregation somewhere. The time between has been a gift that's allowed me to make real headway on a book I've been wanting to do for years. Now, the fairly arduous task of finding a publisher. It's called Magnificent Journey: Religion as Either a Lock on the Past, or an Engine of Evolution. It's about an evolutionary spirituality, a new quality of consciousness beyond ego for a time when the old myths can no longer serve us, when human greed has taken us to the brink of catastrophic ecological collapse. Drawing on my own life story as a former fundamentalist and as a gay man in a society held captive by outmoded religion, I show that transformation is possible, that the energies of life itself are available to us in this crisis.
A benefit of this transition time has been the ability to spend time at EnlightenNext, in Lenox and Cambridge in Massachusetts, and in London. The community of people centered there and the evolutionary teaching of founder Andrew Cohen, and of Ken Wilber, have opened a new dimension for me. Immediately I recognized here a splendid unfolding of what many others — Emerson and the Transcendentalists, Aurobindo, and many more — have understood and developed. It seems to me that no one more than Unitarian Universalists should find here both magnificent stimulus and vital company on our journey.
I used the transition time, too, to produce an hour-long weekly broadcast, called Spirit, on Valley Free Radio, WXOJ-LP, in Northampton — and to serve on the station's board, and to serve on its Grievance and Mediation team. But for now I'm 1300 miles from that wonderful, intrepid station and, so, after two years on the air, I won't be broadcasting any new programs. You can still hear many previous broadcasts at the podcasting site below.
Use the navigation panel on the right to explore the site.
