“I am sure that you, like me, rue the day you started spouting phrases your parents said all the time that you swore you would never, never say. Things like, ‘When I was your age I
“The truth of being human is that sometimes the reality of loss, the reality of losing someone close, keeps us from peace, reconciliation and right relationship,” said the Rev. Amy K. Butler at the 9:15
"Sometimes it is hard to put ourselves in others' shoes. Sometimes it hits too close to home, but when we face the truth about who we are, we have taken the first step toward making
“Peace begins or ends around the table. Stanley Hauerwas said that war is the great liturgical alternative to eucharist. We get one-on-one training ; it is the ground for peace or war,” said the Rev.
“A parable is usually an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. But most of the action in today’s reading takes place in the next world. It is a heavenly, or should I say hellish, story with
The Rev. Amy K. Butler, who serves as the seventh senior minister of the historic Riverside Church in New York City and its first woman senior pastor, will be the chaplain for Week Eight at
“Clarence Jordan, the great backwoods preacher, said that when Jesus told a parable he lit dynamite and covered it with a story. Parables are events of the Kingdom of God in linguistic form,” said the
There is a problem with the little snapshots of life in the early church found in the Book of Acts. “It is discouraging because everything is so darn perfect, so blue sky and idyllic. It
Week Seven chaplain the Rev. Thomas G. Long began the 9:15 a.m. Tuesday morning worship service with a short audio clip from a jazz album that featured a piano, played by Duke Ellington, and an
“In this cultural moment, the heresy in America is not atheism, it is superficiality. We can walk across the river of spiritual life and not get our feet wet,” said the Rev. Thomas G. Long.
“We are running out of time. But it is not life that is running out of time. It is death. It is not justice that is running out of time, but injustice. It is not
"At Chautauqua we have the courage to look at the world situation and we are invited to feel its brokenness. This leads to tears that do not paralyze, but that empower,” said the Rev. John
When it comes to race, the Rev. Thomas G. Long believes we are on the edge of a “major social adjustment” on the magnitude of the civil rights movement. “I am concerned about the political
“Before the mountains had been shaped and before the skies were formed, God, with the feminine sacred wisdom, drew a circle on the face of the deep,” said the Rev. John Philip Newell during the
“In the Celtic tradition, the stranger is celebrated. There is an imperative to welcome the stranger because in the stranger you will encounter the sacred, the Holy Otherness instead of the Wholly Otherness,” said the
“Everything came into being through the Word. Everything is the expression of the One; you are the unique expression of the One and the world needs the unique expression of God in the heart of