"For families across the country, today marks the beginning of a joyous time to reflect on the rich African-American culture and to remember the principles of unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith—principles that reflect our most cherished values as Americans." — Barack Obama

The Sufi mystic Rumi is said to have believed in and taught reincarnation. He wrote,

“Like grass I have grown over and over again. I passed out of mineral form and lived as a plant. From plant I was lifted up to be an animal. Then I put away the animal form and took on a human shape. Why should I fear that if I died I shall be lost? For passing human form I shall attain the flowing locks and shining wings of angels. And then I shall become what no mind has ever conceived. Oh, let me cease to exist! For non-existence only means that I shall return to Him, my Beloved.”

Who or what is God, the Supreme Being, the Higher Power, our One Consciousness? Where do we find God? Where do we find clues to the nature of a Supreme Being? How do we encounter this entity in this life? How do we relate to that which gives rise to our conscious being?

Blessings, blessings, and more blessings: that is my prayer for you. Happy Thanksgiving and may God greatly bless you!

As the holiday season approaches, and another year draws to a close, it is hard not to take stock of all that has happened in the last few years. Life has taken many turns for me, especially over the last decade or so. It has always been a series of lessons, where Spirit has guided, and many companions arrived to help me along the way.

The Fifth Chakra is centered in the throat and neck. Its color is blue. Communication, creativity, and expression are rooted in the Fifth Chakra. It is where the body meets the mind. My whole life has been a series of “push-me-pull-you” relationships with this Chakra.

I am often asked what it means to be an “interfaith” and “interspiritual” minister. Interspirituality is both an understanding and a movement. As an understanding, interspirituality recognizes the common denominators that unite the world’s wisdom traditions, like the strive for peace, love, and unity with the Divine. As a movement, interspirituality sees that the world has become smaller, and as globalization blurs the borders between East and West, North and South, and all parts of our modern world, our understanding of all things spiritual has also undergone a globalization of sorts.

“The only answer in this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community. The living together, working together, sharing together, loving God and loving our brother, and living close to him in community so we can show our love for him.” Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness (Harper Row 1980), p. 243

Saint Thomas Aquinas is credited with leading the Roman Catholic Church out of the Dark Ages. For me, he was – and perhaps is – the measure of my Catholic and Christian education.

I once had the pleasure of hearing North American Wiccan scholar, civil rights lawyer, and self-described witch, Phyllis Currott, speak over the course of a chilly Fall weekend in October.

If he were alive today, Thomas Merton would be 107 years old. Born in 1915, he died in 1968 at 53 years old. He entered the cloistered monastic life at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky when he was 26, and died 26 years later. I was 9 years old when he died.

Lectio Divina: The Contemplative practice of using literature to touch the Divine. Find a book on love, on relationship, on the heart, etc., and use that book as a contemplative teacher. Set up a sitting area where you drop into prayer, ask for healing and guidance, and open the book "randomly" to any page. Read the text, mediate some more and journal.

Author Anodea Judith, in her book Eastern Body, Western Mind, writes about the Seventh Chakra (also known as the Crown Chakra for its position at the very top of our cerebral cortex) in terms of human experience.

I was recently asked by a group of students to offer a prayer in thanksgiving for all of life’s many blessings.

Each week, spiritual seekers meet in small groups via Zoom with Rev. Chris to explore interfaith topics with one another.