Three Village Interfaith Clergy Association

Tuesday I had the honor to participate in a panel discussion at Five Towns College,  https://www.ftc.edu/ .  Their Performing Arts Center is showing Disgraced, a 2012 play by Ayad Akhtar.  The one-act play features a religiously and ethincally diverse cast of characters who come to learn just how complex their shared and conflicting identities really are.   For the event today,  the actors performed excerpts from the show for the students and others in attendance, and then an array of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish clergy and professionals spoke about some of the themes in the play and common misperceptions, particularly regarding Islam, which plays a major role in the plot. This was one of the times participating in ecumenical programs made me proud.  The students and others present seemed really moved by what was presented.  Some important points about the nature of Islam in particular and religion in general came out, and above all, the les...

The Rev. Dr. Linda Anderson, Unitarian Universalist Community Minister in Affiliation with the  Unitarian Universalist  Fellowship at Stony Brook I was asked to write for the Ask the Clergy Column in Newsday on the question "Who are the most significant female figures in your faith tradition?" Below is my answer. At a time when hardly any denominations would ordain women to the ministry, the Universalist Convention of New York, in 1863, ordained Olympia Brown. She was the first woman to be ordained in my faith tradition and indeed the first woman whose ordination was recognized by an entire denomination. This was a symbolic, highly significant gesture affirming the acceptability of all women to preach the word of God. On a more concrete level, Brown serves as a model for women to persist in the struggle for what they believe is just. Not only did Brown serve as a minister (in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Racine, Wisconsin), she was among the first suffra...

Loving Long Island I wrote this poem, a thanksgiving affirmation and prayer, back in the fall of 2012, in my second year of ministry here in Stony Brook. I was learning to love my new home on earth, and invited the congregation to travel with me across the island and back and forward in time to name the blessings we inherit and pass on.  Our Long Island home is shaped like a fish!  and it is swimming towards the big city  and its tail is in the sea and the sound. It’s 110 miles long and 20 miles wide,  700 miles and 124 stations on the Long Island Railroad, 72 miles of Long Island Expressway, hundreds of sights and sounds and colors long, on the parkways and highways and byways that take us where we need to go, all seven and a half million humans beings who live here, We love this our long island home,  this land beneath our feet, this ancient story we’ve entered. Ancient glaciers scraped up these Long Island hills  and...

I f many people pray for someone to get better and the person partially recovers, did God answer the prayer?   Was the prayer lacking because not enough people joined in?   Would the person have completely recovered if twice as many people had prayed? The thought of this age old question came to me, along with so many other thoughts, contemplating the tragic story that unfolded in our largery community this week leading to the tragic death of John Wile, a man with cognitive impairment who had been missing after going for a jog earlier this week.   My heart goes out to his family. I was moved how so many people joined in the effort to attempt to locate him, but without success.   So did all our prayers not work?   Did we not offer enough?   Do enough? This is the wrong way to imagine how prayer works.   Rabbi David Wolpe refers to such bargaining prayer – make my loved one better and I’ll be good as “hardly the highest spirit of faith.” Would th...

“So, what do you do for a living?” she said to me. Not in my usual clerical garb, I needed to answer, “I am an Episcopal priest.”  “Oh right, you guys are like Catholic priests but can get married,” she exclaimed.  Not wanting to get into too elaborate a discussion, I acknowledged the capability and then shared a brief sentence or two describing the Episcopal church as not really Protestant and not Roman Catholic, but holding a “middle way” respecting Holy Scripture, Tradition and Reason. I then told her about some upcoming events at Caroline church and invited her to come.  As an Episcopal priest here in the Three Villages for many years, and Rector of the historic Caroline Church of Brookhaven, I am no longer surprised how many people have a rather narrow understanding of just what the Episcopal Church is all about.  Yes, as with all Christian denominations, Jesus Christ is the head of our church: that Church being one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.  T...

Every weekend I visit my 95 year-old mother who lives in Woodmere.   She still lives in the same house where I grew up, but now with an aide who provides her with 24/7 care.   Although her mind is clouded with dementia, she still enjoys simple pleasures- sitting on her porch with family members, looking at pictures of her great-grandchildren, painting with watercolors, and especially noshing on pastries from her favorite bakery- Walls.   My mother could eat an entire box of Walls cookies in a single sitting if we let her!   And who could blame her- they are SO delicious.   Walls has existed since I was a child.   It is legendary on Long Island (in the whole NY metropolitan area, actually), all you need to do is check Yelp to see the passion of its customers.   I remember tremendous long lines snaking out the door before the Jewish New Year with all of the locals anxiously waiting to buy their favorite honey cakes, strudels, the famous ‘Phil...

I wonder … A few years ago, I was at a week-long meeting of Quakers in upstate New York and we started every morning with a short community worship. Each day we were asked to turn to someone near us and ask an open-ended question, different every day, and all of them began “I wonder …” as in “I wonder how it might feel to… ?”   or “I wonder if you have ever … ?” At first I was shy, there were many people there I did not know, and I am not a morning person.  But that simple phrase seemed to have magic for us as a group.  “Wondering” became a welcoming invitation to imagine new things together and allowed a falling-away of discomfort.  I know that the worship leader that week was skilled and grounded and the group was open to Spirit.  I am sure that is the basis of the magic I felt.  But in the time since that week, I find that when I let myself “wonder” about something that needs my attention - whether it is how to reach out to someone whose vi...