Church of Our Saviour » COS Surfs

COS Surfs: Ready, Click, Grow!

web — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:14:04 +0000

From the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts Family Minstry News: Ready, Click, Grow Your Family is a great place to find interesting activities, conversation starters, family projects and easy-to-use bible studies that can have you discussing and learning about important keys to faith. This extremely user-friendly site even includes things just for grandparents.

If you are looking for more, then check the link to Ready, Click, Grow Your Faith for personal help in growing in your own faith and understanding.

Advent Online

web — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Looking for online Advent resources? Find daily Advent meditations offered by the Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale, President and Dean, as well as other Advent resources and calendars, on the Episcopal Divinity School website, www.eds.edu.

COS Surfs: Gleaning

web — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:51:48 +0000

Fallen Fruit is a mapping and manifesto for fallen fruit—free food lying about unclaimed and unused in a world filled with hunger. Search your neighborhood for neglected trees. Gather up those apples and pears and give them away. And pop over to Fallen Fruit and learn about holding your own public FruitJam. Fallen Fruit projects range from social practice (events, performances and public actions) to photography, video and installations. All direct our attention to the social relationships between the environment, urban space and transnational capitalism.

St. Mary’s Food Bank, Feeding America, Food For Free, Boston Area Gleaners, and the Society of St. Andrew are all examples of efforts to glean leftover or wasted food and use it to feed the hungry. The USDA has a webpage about gleaning which is a resource guide on food recovery programs for businesses, community-based profit or nonprofit organizations, private citizens, and public officials. Check them out.

COS Surfs: SoMA

web — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:55:49 +0000

This month’s surfing suggestion is SoMA: A Review of Religion and Culture. The acronym stands for Society of Mutual Autopsy, a rather gory metaphor drawn from a small group of scientists and intellectuals in the 19th century who volunteered to let each other perform autopsies on each other’s brains to find the location of the soul. Kind of makes you want to take it on faith, doesn’t it?

The contemporary version of SoMA site is an online “magazine devoted to dissecting matters of the soul—the sacred and the profane, the ridiculous and the sublime.” SoMA considers faith a matter of ultimate concern and seeks to illuminate authentic and inauthentic faith. There is an interesting article entitled “Not Christian Enough” by someone we all know very well. Check it out!

COS Surfs: Radiolab

web — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:23:42 +0000

This month’s website recommendation is Radiolab, a show about curiosity, available for download as a podcast. Their website tells us “each episode is an investigation—a patchwork of people, sounds and stories centered on one big idea.” The shows often feature interviews with science types who explain the research related to the idea under discussion. It originates at WNYC and is heard on 150 stations around the country. Clearly, there are a lot of curious people around! If you’re one of them, catch up on recent episodes on Choice, Sperm, Race, Diagnosis, and Yellow Fluff and other Curiosities.

COS Surfs: Open Culture

Administrator — Sat, 02 May 2009 21:50:25 +0000

Open Culture is a veritable goldmine! It describes itself as an aggregator for the best free cultural and educational media on the web. It links you to audio, podcasts, and videos. You will find hundreds of free audiobooks to download, collections of free university courses (from schools some of us know and love), links to all the available podcasts from major universities all over the world, and links to podcasts from major business and law schools. There are links to the audio, podcasts, or videos from cultural programs all over the world, such as the CBC’s Best of Ideas, France Culture: Répliques, Deutsche Welle: Inspired Minds, and the Council on Foreign Relations. If music is more your thing, there are links to concerts worldwide, including our own Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and discussions in blogs and podcasts on everything from Yo Yo to Bono. Religion links of all kinds are found, of pretty good quality as indicated by a link to a certain talk given at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Something about Judas… Once you find this site there is simply no excuse for watching Law & Order re-runs! Check it out at www.openculture.com.

COS Surfs: Sound and Spirit

Administrator — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:45:28 +0000

Ellen Kushner’s wonderful program on NPR, “Sound and Spirit,” is available as a free podcast or listen to past shows on your computer. These weekly programs explore the human spirit through music and ideas. The shows travel the world and the centuries presenting spiritual traditions, myth, and history. The music of the traditions is a wonderful medium for understanding and appreciating the lived experience of their followers. The show airs live on Sundays at 5 pm but if you miss it, check out the program’s website.

COS Surfs: The Revealer and The Velveteen Rabbi

katherine — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:19:27 +0000

The Revealer comes out of New York University’s Center for Religion and Media. It describes itself as a “daily review of religion and the press” and prides itself on being “polypartisan”. Beliefnet says it’s a “great place to start for the latest–and often obscure–religion news, as well as excellent links to a wide range of religion news resources and other blogs.”

The Velveteen Rabbi: Beliefnet considers this one of the best personal Jewish blogs on the web. It’s written by Rachel Barenblat, who is not actually a rabbi, but a rabbinic student. The blog entries are beautiful musings on prayer, holidays, blessings, and Jewish spirituality. It also offers a variety of posts about other religions and traditions.

COS Surfs: Beliefnet and Get Religion

Administrator — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:34:51 +0000

Beliefnet.com is the largest and glossiest spirituality website and won the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence Online in 2007. It has resources for people of all faiths and provides everything from a prayer of the dayto recipes to feed the soul. There are reviews, editorials, video selections and all manner of links to other resources.

Getreligion.org is a project of the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life. Its slogan is “The press … just doesn’t get religion.” See if they do. Check out their perspective on religious events.