An interesting discussion came up on one of the online discussion forums. Someone posted the results of an fMRI study where researchers found patterns of brain activity that predict people's decisions up to 10 seconds before they're aware they've made a choice. The poster then asked the question whether this was the end of the belief in free will.

For our interfaith dialogue discussion topic last night, the question was "How does your spirituality affect your life?"

Btw, Happy Purim, Happy Holi, and Happy Norooz!

I'm told that the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is called Holy Saturday. It seems more like "Holely Saturday" to me, as in something is missing. From the despair of Good Friday to the exultations of Easter Sunday, what happens in the in-between time? Caught between death and rebirth, Saturday almost seems like a time to sleep. A time to rest and dream.

In some ways, Good Friday was a day like any other day. Around noon time I made my way over to Silver Spring to have lunch with my friend, Kat. While it's been longer than we would have liked since our last lunch, this was not an unusual thing.

Back in October, I participated in an Interfaith Dialogue facilitator training. Tonight, a few of us finally got around to going to the next level - engaging in Dialogue amongst ourselves and practicing facilitation. Our group consisted of ten participants, 2 Christians, 3 Jews, 2 Baha'i, 1 Muslim and 1 Unitarian Universalist (me).

Another thing that came up at the "Now is the Time" conference, surprisingly, was creedalism. One of the participants, in his desire to spread the good news of Unitarian Universalism to people of color, argued that we should do away with our wishy-washy "noncreedalism" - that this type of moral relativism would turn off PoCs who's realities tell them that not all views are equally valid.

The Super Bowl is today. In case it's possible that you don't know who's playing, it's the undefeated New England Patriots versus wild-card team, the New York Giants. Almost every time there is a major sporting event my brother and I get into a polite argument. It's the same argument every time. My brother roots for the team with the better record, on the assumption that if they have the better record they must be the better team and thus deserve to win. I otoh almost always root for the underdog.

Our office is up in Boston for a staff retreat, to have "face-time" with people with whom we closely work, to build relationships, to learn from UU clergy and social justice leaders on how we can better serve them, and to meet with the UUSC. In all, the last two days have been informative and exhausting and, as always for me when we talk of social justice, there is the tension between the urgent need for action and feeling completely overwhelmed and powerless.

One of my pet peeves about what passes for "liberalism" these days is moral relativism. Don't get me wrong, I am a post-modernist through and through. I do believe that things must be judged in the context in which they are created and that people with different experiences can interpret the same thing differently and both be right.

UU World published an article called, Not My Father's Religion in its Fall edition that I didn't think much about. I didn't think much about it because I agreed with what it said and thought it fairly obvious. Ours is a religion of the privileged. It is less likely to appeal to those who are working class. This is something that we need to work on.