June 2012 Blog Posts (38)

Come join the peace campers and staff for our Closing Ceremony at 2:00pm. Each group will present a skit, song, or presentation on this year’s Peace Camp theme— Oceans of Peace.

2:00 Closing Ceremony

3:00 Dismissal  - Campers will be dismissed from their classrooms after picking up their activity bags.

We still have a few spots available for Week 2 (July 2, 3, 5, 6) and Week 3 (July 9-13).  Please see the registration desk if interested.

Please take our Peace…

Hospitals are not new to me.  I worked as a nursing tech when I was in nursing school, and then I worked as a registered nurse on some pretty intense units.  I’ve worked on intensive care units.  I’ve worked with adults.  I’ve worked with children.  I’ve worked with newborns so little they shouldn’t have even been born yet.  I’ve taught nurses in hospitals.  Hospitals are not new to me.

Being a hospital chaplain is new to me.  I’m not lifting patients and…

Read the July Arlingtarian…

Read the July Arlingtarian…

I'm sitting on our delayed flight home with our UUCA youth delegation in awe of the actions we took and the results we got in the last five days of the General Assembly. Not only was this one of the best GA's that I've been to, but it was probably the BEST way to introduce youth to a GA. It's social justice and action components are naturally attractive to the young millennials in our group. As a group we overcame our trials and tribulations, and discovered a powerful force within us to make…

Peace Camp 2012 left the dock today for a three week cruise on the Oceans of Peace.  72 campers and over 40 staff learned about put ups and I Care language, worked on art projects, played cooperative games, danced, visited the Peace Museum, cared for the earth, and wrote Peace songs with songwriter Noah Silver. So much fun packed into one day!

Check out photos of camp:…

The Supreme Court has struck down all provisions of the law allowing people to be "stopped" without any legal provocation. And the Court has sent a stern warning that checking immigration documents can only be used when a person has been stopped for OTHER than an Immigration reason. Moreover, the reasonableness of the the time it takes to process the reason for the stop may not include unreasonable time to include checking on Immigration status. Once Arizona tries to enforce this provision,…

Hola friends and supporters at UUCA,



For those who aren’t already aware, I made it back from Guatemala to Texas in May. The past two months have been filled with a countless number of reunions with old friends and reconnecting with the city I left, Austin. I’m incredibly grateful to the many of you who have supported me, hung out with me, given me rides, or just listened to me during this time of transition. To those of you not so close - thanks for taking the time to read this…

  This is why GA is such a rich experience:  http://www.uua.org/immigration/re/ga/208868.shtml:  Life changing, exiciting, knowledge exchange.

Any time a public policy persists despite decades of failure, you have to ask "Who benefits?"

The answer in the fiasco "War on Drugs" is our banks, the private prison industry, local police, border patrol, the military, and the banks, the banks, the banks.  Why don't we do more to prevent and treat drug adiction, and get serious about stopping money laundering, Colombia has very strict banking laws that drove their drug traffickers to the U.S. where our "no regulation"…

I have eight old, hard cover books to give away.  Who doesn't like free books?



Let me know which ones you want and when you can pick them up from my house in Alexandria.

1. Alcott, Louisa M. Jack and Jill. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1903.
2. Alcott, Louisa M. Under the Lilacs. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1902.
3. Boccaccio, Giovani. The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio. John Payne, translator. New York: Blue Ribbon…

As you all know, UUCA is about to embark on an ambitious construction project that will see us upgrade our parking lot and replace our east wing. In order to keep you informed of our progress and to alert you to new traffic/parking patterns, please check back to this website for your weekly updates.…

The UUA's General Assembly planned protest for Saturday in Phoenix prompts the Maricopa County sheriff to close their "Tent City" jail to visitors. Click here for the complete…

Earlier today at the UUA General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona, Rev. Dr. Linda Olson Peebles was elected president-designate to the UU Ministers Association (1,700 UU ministers professional organization). Congratulations!

For general coverage of the General Assembly,…

I find that lately, I am stopping off in the hospital chapel to pray before I head home these days.  I pray for patients I have seen.  I pray for their families.  I pray for the staff at the hospital.   I pray for continued strength for myself.  I pray because so many people have asked that I pray for them.  It’s not just that I’m keeping a promise.  It’s that I need to turn that burden over to God before I leave.  

Please don’t think that I mind carrying…

The 2012 UUA Justice General Assembly begins tonight.  You can watch in real time from the comfort of your own home -- just go to www.uua.org/ga/2012/index.shtml. Coverage starts at 10:30 pm EDT with the Opening Celebration and Banner Parade, and goes through Sunday.

Gail Goodridge passed away peacefully on June 19th. and I'll miss her a lot.  Gail was an effective social activist as a member of St. Charles Borromeo church's VOICE Core team where I got to know her. She was very much committed to the goals of VOICE.  In addition she was the St. Charles Borromeo representative of SALT (Social Action Linking Together, a VA advocacy group for welfare recipients) In addition, she worked a number of years in Africa, most recently on an AIDS project.  There…

Aung San Suu Kyi Receives Nobel Peace Prize After Two Decades [FULL TEXT OF SPEECH]

Full Text of Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Lecture.

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dear Friends,

Long years ago, sometimes it seems many lives ago, I was at Oxford listening to the radio programme Desert Island Discs with my young son Alexander. It was a well-known programme (for all I know it still continues) on which…

Now the spotlight is on Penn State University: it’s exalted football program . . . and the revered coach accused of raping at-risk boys entrusted to him for character development.  Also of note just now is the exclusive Horace Mann School in New York City, where male teachers allegedly used boys for sex. And . . . the American Boy Choir School in Princeton, N.J., where male faculty members have been accused of toying sexually with some 30 per cent of the students. And . . .…

In his blog on the UUA website, Rev. Peter Morales expresses his gratitude to UUCA's incoming Interim Senior Minister, Rev. Dr. David Keyes, who wrote an open letter affirming the support the Association has given to Eliot Chapel in St. Louis. Rev. Dr. David's letter is here ... and it gives you a sense of…