Rev. Mark Ward
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

Each month in my column, Minister's Musings, in our printed church newsletter, I reflect on important events or issues in the life of our church. My premise in these columns is to follow Ralph Waldo Emerson's advice to graduating seminarians at Harvard in 1838 that, "the true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life - life passed through the fire of thought."

And so this column often reflects issues that arise in the religious life as I experience them, which I hope also resonate in the living we do day to day. I think we all are well-served by living an "examined" life, one marked not simply by careening from event to event, but by taking time for thought, meditation and reflection. Such, I think, is the path to integrity, wholeness and meaning.

Click on the underlined Column Topic to read that issue.