Sustaining the real presence of community on Zoom

Meeting for worship on Zoom

Excerpts from “A Jewel in the Lotus: Buddhist chaplaincy includes compassion and ‘skillful means,'” by Chris Berlin, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Autumn/Winter 2020


Chris Berlin, is an instructor in ministry and spiritual counseling and the denominational counselor to Buddhist students at Harvard Divinity School.  With his colleague Cheryl Giles, he teaches the course Compassionate Care of the Dying: Buddhist Trainings and Techniques.

The course interweaves teachings in the Buddhist view of impermanence and death with

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OMGWM Part 3: Teased post-polio sissy

"Frankfurt am Main - African refugees rallying for the right to stay in Germany" [Demo für Bleiberecht, Bahnhofsviertel], by Picturepest on flickr (1/1/2000)

I encourage readers to give full attention to the footnotes.  I have used a reference librarian’s “due diligence” to offer relevant background information throughout this article.

    • Part 1 – Old middle-class gay white man
    • Part 2 –”Whiteness” as a class thing
    • Part 3 – Teased post-polio sissy

It astonishes me sometimes—no, often—how every person I get to know—
everyone, regardless of everything, by which

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OMGWM Part 2: “Whiteness” as a class thing

"The Teff Harvest, Northern Ethiopia," by A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest [Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons]

Introduction: In Part 1, I wrote about growing up oblivious to the “white cultural mindset which is my default setting.”  There is much more to this than most of us realize. 

I encourage readers to give full attention to the footnotes.  I have used a reference librarian’s “due diligence” to offer relevant background information throughout this article.

    • Part 1 – Old middle-class gay white man
    • Part 2 –”Whiteness” as a class
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Old middle-class gay white man: Part 1

"Duo," by Mike Shell (4/29/2021)

Note: I encourage readers to give full attention to the footnotes.  I have used a reference librarian’s “due diligence” to offer relevant background information throughout this article.

  • Part 1 – Old middle-class gay white man
  • Part 2 –”Whiteness” as a class thing
  • Part 3 – Teased post-polio sissy

My life began in a liberal 1950s Ohio preacher’s family.  When I was 10, Dad moved us to Boston so he could earn a doctorate

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Dismissing essential workers as “heroes”

"USDA subcontract staff boxing multiple-week supplemental food boxes for children in rural locations," by Lance Cheung

We Are All Called to Be ‘Heroes’,” by Elam D. Jones (Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Autumn/Winter 2020, 19-21)


In “We Are All Called to Be ‘Heroes’,” Elam D. Jones explains why he is wary of the popular pandemic practice of calling essential workers “heroes.”

I have come to understand that the label “hero” and how it has been employed in the United States to refer to essential workers not only generates complicated and ambiguous feelings

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It’s about us, not the police

Primary Border Fence with Mexico (BBC World)

If we are concerned about use of force by the police, then we need to shine the light on the depths of our own brutality, brutality that we have projected onto them over the past century or so.

As America has become urbanized, we have handed over more and more responsibility for maintaining civil society to the “rule of law” and the “arm of the law.” Increasingly, instead of doing the personal work of neighbors and community, we

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The personal, not the political

Prosperous couple & bag lady on a bench

There is nobody on the planet, neither those whom we see as the oppressed nor those whom we see as the oppressor, who doesn’t have what it takes to wake up.The Pocket Pema Chödrön (156)

Human change is always personal, not political.

Yes, all social concerns are in some way “political” concerns (Greek politikos, from politēs “citizen’,” from polis “city”). But our feelings about a concern are personal reactions to the concern, not pragmatic steps toward remedies. And

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