Disabled Basketball Player Helped by Opponent to Score Shot

A most extraordinary incarnation of what the world looks like when we offer each other our gifts and share our delight in each other and the world.

I love this quote. It creates an irresistible tension between our present reality and the world of our imagination. We are compelled to resolve the tension through our own acts of courage and compassion.

I sailed my old wooden boat, Seven Bells, to Port Townsend, WA last weekend for the Wooden Boat Festival.

Only a few months ago, I started voice lessons with Mark Power, a Seattle-area voice coach, composer, and a singer/performer in many operas and musicals. I knew little about  Mark's personal background, but I gave him a copy of the book I published in 2011: The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family. My book tells the history of fundamentalism over the past two centuries, and connects that history with the history of my own family across the generations.

Video published by TedXRainier, an independently organized TED event in Seattle, WA.

At the American Academy of Religion meeting in San Francisco in November, Chiara Press hosted a public conversation between Randall Balmer and me titled "Emerging from Fundamentalism," during which we discussed my recent book The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family.

Excerpt from Chapter 3 of The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family

On Tuesday afternoon, October 4, 2011, my sister Faith called from Chattanooga and said, “Mom’s gone.” I heard a rushing sound in my ears and my heart thumped and I said the most profound thing I could think of, which was, “Oh my.” Then I leaned against the wall as Faith told me the details—our 86-year-old Mom was walking down the hall when she just fell down and was gone that fast, likely it was her heart that gave out—and Faith and I cried