“The Bent Over Woman” Rev. Judith Bagley-BonnerLuke 13: 10-13a10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her foreighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand upstraight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman,you are…

Welcome again to our International Day of Peace service. The actual day declared by the United Nations was Friday, but since this is the closest Sunday, we commemorate it today, along with many other churches. The United Nations General Assembly invites us on this day to ponder peace in a focused way, and to recommit ourselves to it. I had just began…

This month we have been looking at the question of emotional tone in our relationships, and how we might help to warm them up. Two weeks ago we celebrated Valentine’s Day with the message to come right out and say it when we love someone, be it a partner, family member or friend. Last week we looked at the importance of really…

Last week, in our multi-generational, valentines service, I tried to talk about the importance of coming right out and saying it when we love someone. That was the beginning of a three week focus on warming up relationships in our personal lives, our family lives (however you define family) and in our larger communities as well. Next week will be the final…

Valentine’s Day reminds us that it’s good to come right out and SAY IT! We do, of course, say it without the words, per se, in lots of what we say and do. You primary breadwinners say it every day when the clock goes off while it is still dark out, and you are still heavy with sleep deprivation, and you get…

First Reading: Portions of the poem “Instructions to Painters & Poets” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from his anthology How to Paint Sunlight I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poetshow to paint sunlighton the face of life.Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous,as if they were all guarding trade secrets. Whereas it seems to meall you have to dois conceive of the whole worldand…

First Reading: From Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo To live wisely we must recognize that there are two fundamental truths of a human life. The first is that we have a limited and undefined amount of time, it may be one hundred years, it may be thirty. The second is that, in that limited and undefined amount of…

Reading: “In a Mother’s Womb” (unattributed) In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense,” said the first baby. “There is no life after delivery. What…

This is the second of a three week series on Progressive Theology. In a way, that is a misnomer, because it is really only one, specific version of Progressive Theology, namely my own. As I mentioned last week, some of you had pressed me a bit to come out with my own beliefs. You observed that I had spoken at some length…