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Jane Flowers, Worship Associate
Music — Antonius Nazareth, Music Director

In 1170, Thomas Becket was struck down in his own cathedral, a moment that defined the struggle between the state’s demands and the soul’s integrity. Join our guest speaker, the Rev. James Ishmael Ford, as he uses this haunting historical drama to explore where our own ultimate loyalties lie. How do we find a spiritual center of gravity in a world that constantly asks us to compromise our conscience?

James Ishmael Ford is a Zen teacher and a Unitarian Universalist minister-emeritus. He has authored several books, including Zen at the End of Religion: An Introduction for the Curious, the Skeptical, and the Spiritual but not Religious (2025) and The Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender, and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey (2024), and serves as the guiding teacher emeritus of the Empty Moon Sangha. You can learn more about him on his website https://www.jamesishmaelford.com/ or by reading his substack https://jamesiford.substack.com/.