Much going on, to, and fro. This week's pleasures have included a surprise package from a friend, discussing road trip details with Joanne (we're both participating in the SFPA poetry reading at 2010: A Space Oddity next month, which will feature David Kopaska-Merkel and other luminaries), and this story from a sermon by Hilary Landau Krivchenia, about a country preacher

who decided to skip services one Sunday to spend the day hiking in the wilderness. Rounding a sharp bend in the trail, he collided with a bear and was sent tumbling down a steep grade into a dead end canyon. With the bear charging at him, the preacher prayed, "O Lord, I'm so sorry for skipping services today. Please forgive me and grant me just one wish: make a Christian out of that bear!"

At that very instant, the bear skidded to a halt, fell to her knees, clasped her paws together and began to pray aloud at the preacher's feet: "Dear God, please bless this food I am about to receive."

- excerpted in the UUA Worship Resources Supplement on "Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice"

One of my must-do-by-tomorrow items is to update one of my church's bulletin boards with a feature on Ethical Eating - hence my browsing around uua.org at various times today. One of the newer headlines there: Courageous Ugandan UUs Fight "Anti-Homosexuality Bill". The UU Association of Uganda is hosting an interfaith conference on Valentine's day "to highlight the need for an end to discriminatory treatment of the BGLT population--and their allies--in the country."

Onward!