The Right Reverend Barbara C. Harris (1930-2020): A Tribute

Barbara Harris was a force of nature! (photo here) She crossed to the other side, at age 89, on Friday the 13th of March 2020. This post will be more personal than usual. I had the privilege to know Barbara for 30 years, and here I want to share some memories that one probably cannot […]

Questioning Christian Orthodoxy in the Christmas Season

It will strike some readers as “heresy” for members of one of the mainstream Christian denominations (in this case, the Episcopal Church) to question several tenets of a major document of the church – especially when the questioning comes during the major season of Christmas. For other readers, though – perhaps those searching in a […]

Index to the Fourth Year

Thank you as always for checking in with WisdomWordsPPF!  Below is a guide to the past year of blog posts. Here are the other indices: First year (October 2015-October 2016); Second year (October 2016-October 2017); Third year (October 2017-October 2018). US Politics, Trump Administration, 2018 and 2020 Elections Buyer’s Remorse and Self-Forgiveness: Humble Suggestions for […]

Meditation on the Halting of Death Row Executions

Recently Governor Gavin Newsom of California halted executions of inmates on death row. Newsom expressed sympathy with victims and their loved ones, saying this as he took his action, “To the victims, all I can say is, ‘We owe you and we need to do more and do better, more broadly for victims in this […]

Index to the Third Year

Thank you as always for checking in with WisdomWordsPPF!  Here is a guide to the past year of blog posts (note that some posts appear in several categories). If you want a guide to the first year (October 2015-October 2016), you can find it here, and a guide to the second year (October 2016-October 2017) […]

Random Christmas Thoughts

Three days before Christmas: a good time to share some random thoughts on the reason for the holiday – the man Jesus with the title “Christ.” Jesus the man lived nearly 2,000 years ago as a Jewish subject in the Roman Empire. After he died, his followers kept his memory alive in a myriad of […]

Index to the Second Year

Thank you as always for checking in with WisdomWordsPPF!  Here is a guide to the past year of blog posts (note that some posts appear in several categories). If you want a guide to the first year (October 2015-October 2016), you can find it here. Posts on Social Justice, Politics and Our Peer Nations The […]

Medjugorje: Exploring the Science of the Afterlife

Many modern Westerners tend to be leery of the possibility of an afterlife, even of the existence of a soul. In a Post-Enlightenment age, we are surrounded by science, technology, evidence and proofs. Climate change denial notwithstanding, we tend to believe only what we can observe with our five senses. The physical is real; the […]

The Wheat and the Weeds: The Law of Cause and Effect and Christian Judgmentalism

Traditional Christian judgmentalism – the notion that only those who believe in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior will go to heaven when they die – originates in part from the New (Christian) Testament lesson that was read in many churches on Sunday, July 23, 2017. The lesson is from the Gospel of Matthew, […]

Truth and Trump per Time

Kudos to Nancy Gibbs, reporter Michael Scherer and Time magazine for their superb treatment of President Donald Trump’s disturbing relationship with the truth and what that means for our nation. Gibbs in her “From the Editor” piece was clear and forthright: “Trump says a great many things that are demonstrably false.” She reminds us that […]