Religion

From the earliest colonial days of America, there emerged an ethic of honest labor and craftsmanship. From farmers to silversmiths and makers of furniture, household implements and tools, there was a value on both the humanity and honor of work.  Yet, by the end of...

How powerful words are! Rabbi Seymour J Cohen wrote: “Words can inspire, destroy, console us, entice us. Throughout history words promoted hatred, murder, even wars! How many politicians permanently had their careers ended by false rumors and innuendos!” Each of us have experienced the power...

In the San Francisco Bay Area, we seem to be in a bubble of more open-minded thinking and inclusion. There are other places, regions and states that seem to be filled with fear of the outsider and suspicion of neighbors of different ethnicity, national...

Prayer takes on different forms in different religious expressions. Prayers are chanted, spoken or sung. Prayers are spoken aloud or uttered more silently.  One of the notable expressions of prayer in Christianity is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples when they asked, “Lord, teach us to...

On Oct. 7, 1885 a 16-year-old German barber named Friedrich boarded a ship for New York.  Fleeing the military service then required in Germany, he became one of over a million German immigrants who flooded these shores between 1880 and 1885.  Once he had accumulated...

This Sunday, April 20, Christians throughout the world celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Jesus. For Christians, Easter is the most important day of the year (Christmas is a distant second) and this year all Christians celebrate it on the same day.  The date of Easter...

“There is no peace on earth,” I said, “for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned these words in a poem written during the Civil War in 1863. The poem was later set...

“Follow your dream—you can do it!” That is the encouragement often offered to children, to youth and to adults in our lives. It is an encouragement to be bold, to pursue their dreams and to persist through difficulties. But what is that dream? What is...

The word “foreigner” gets bandied around a lot in the news. Often, it’s a term reserved for people from another country, but it’s frequently used to describe anyone who looks or acts differently.   I want to share my own experience with a foreigner in Morgan...

We are experiencing a lot of fear these days.  Sometimes fear is legitimate and real. Other times, our fears are overblown and irrational. We call these kinds of fears phobias. The fear of immigrants coming into our country is a phobia, that is, an irrational fear. Some running for...