Rev. Paul Sprecher Barbara Merritt retells a remarkable parable about adversity as a spiritual practice from Rumi, the thirteenth-century Islamic poet and mystic – and author of our familiar hymn “Come, Come, Whoever You Are.” [adapted] As she tells it: [In the story] "Sheikh Kharraqani and His Wretched Wife" … a young religious seeker heard of a Sheikh who could bestow peace to a conflicted mind with a single glance. He set off on the long journey to the mountains where the

“What’s love got to do with it?” asks Tina Turner, but it’s not so irrelevant or second hand as she would have us think, especially if you look at the words we say together every week. Love is integral to this place, taking top billing! It is our source of power and emboldens us in all we do. Everything else follows out of love. This is the conclusion we came to a few years ago in creating a mission statement. We said we didn’t need to use the word love – it was instead the i

Last weekend I attended a workshop in the Berkshires. “Bring your snowshoes,” the welcome packet said. Some twenty five years ago when Chuck and I lived in the northwestern part of Connecticut we often headed north with our snowshoes for a morning of snowy hiking on the trails. I have fond memories of those adventures and tucked my bag with shoes and poles at the ready into my car. In between sessions I would get outside and explore! I was all the way to Russell on the Mass P