Please join the HuffPost community in "A Lenten Journey" for reflections throughout Lent, and join our online Lenten community here.

I got an email the other day with the subject line "Need Something New for Lent." I opened the email to read a note from a...

I was shocked the other night when the applause broke out. I thought I'd heard it wrong.
I'm talking about the crowd sitting under Air Force One at the Reagan Library, listening to the Republican Presidential debate.

When moderator Brian Williams noted that Texas Governor Rick Perry has...

The news from Capitol Hill is nothing short of disgusting, as a freshman class of Tea Partiers threaten the fabric of the democracy they clearly have no interest in serving. One wonders if any one of them paid attention in high school civics class or Econ 101. It's time to...

I am not a Bible-waver.

Let me explain. The other day, I was describing my work to an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile. I explained the mission of The Beatitudes Society as "equipping the next generation of progressive faith leaders to advocate in the public square for justice,...

Commencement Address from the University of California, Santa Barbara Graduate Division

We are gathered here to celebrate you graduates -- you ascend to a new height today with the conferring of these graduate degrees.

And so I'd like to begin by saying: you are not amazing. Despite your accomplishments,...

About a year ago, I started signing off my emails with these words: "we're all in this together." This signature has been my small way to say, "Let's work together -- times are tough, and these tough times demand that we all work together toward for the common good."

And...

"I've been experiencing a bit of déjà vu watching the scenes in Japan.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, I worked with a nuclear disarmament group -- the Interfaith Center to Reverse the Arms Race -- and we spent considerable effort educating religious folks about the dangers...

It was Ash Wednesday, 1980. I remember the day very well. I had just left my job as a newspaper reporter so that I could work on a congressional campaign, and I was also starting a new job at the local Episcopal Church where we were creating a new interfaith...

The 100th anniversary of International Women's Day is a day set aside, as the Huffington Post says, in "celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women past and present." And I've just been asked "who's your hero, I mean, your heroine? Who has led the way...

Born on September 11, 2001, Christina Taylor Green died January 8, 2011, gunned down in a Tucson supermarket parking lot. Christina had just been elected to her school student council and was interested in politics, her family said. She wanted to meet her Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, and learn more about...

Our Christmas tree sits chopped in half, shorn of lights, angels and sparkle, waiting on the curb to be picked up by the trash collector and trucked off to our community's compost heap. Carlos, the trash collector, told me that the pickup day is El Dia de los Tres Reyes,...

There's a guy down my street who's joined in the national "It's Christmas, not Holiday" campaign (BTW, this group's Facebook page says it was founded in 1 A.D.) Among the Christmas decorations on my neighbor's front fence is a hand-lettered sign that proclaims "It's NOT Christmas STORY, it's Christmas TRUTH."