He may be back in Cleveland now but his greatest moments will always be with the Miami Heat especially these moments with the Miami Heat.

What is there to say? LeBron James gave Miami the best four years of his career but it was just a summer romance in the grand scheme of things. He loved us and we loved him but it was never the same. Cleveland was always his one true love and, in LeBron's own words, that goes beyond basketball. Home is where the heart is. The last four years have been unbelievable and historic. I got to see one of the greatest basketball players of all time proudly wear the same jersey I've proudly worn for 26 years and will continue to wear until I'm dirt. I will certainly never burn it. Very few in Miami will, I imagine. We were incredibly blessed and we know that and we are deeply grateful. The sports world will continue to vilify us and claim this is what we deserve because we don't measure up to their standard of pathological sports fandom. What they don't understand is that we are a city of immigrants, many with very little history or roots in this country, let alone...

TheSportsBank.net It's been a little difficult to think about basketball this week for Heat fans, especially with so much uncertainty swirling around the Big Three and several other free agents. The Heat clearly have needs to fill and they all center around one glaring issue: Depth. This is a team that straight up ran out of gas in the last three games of the Finals and the one thing they need more than anything is a deeper bench. And it hasn't gotten any easier since Sunday. Shane Battier has already announced his retirement and Chris Anderson announced that he will opt out of his contract, likely looking for more money at a time when the Heat can't afford to pay him. Mario Chalmers's spot on the Heat roster is in jeopardy as well. On the bright side, Udonis Haslem has expressed a desire to restructure his deal to free some cap space. If the Big Three has any desire to continue their dynasty by winning more championships, they will likely have to do the same... N...

Ok I'm a little afraid right now but I trust in the Riles...

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 SATURDAY started off inauspiciously with me (and not Jeremy) being woken up several times in the 6:00 am hour by Jeremy's cell phone alarm.  I tried putting the damn thing next to his head and he still wouldn't wake up.  Eventually I decided since I was up anyway, I'd go to Morning Worship.  It was alright, the content was interesting but overall I found it to be pretty uninspired.  The best part was making quiet conversation with Greg and becoming Twitter buddies. After worship was Plenary, which included selection of potential Actions of Immediate Witness by voting to put 3 of the 6 proposed AIWs on the agenda, the Board of Trustees report and statements from the candidates for the Board, and debate and vote on bylaws amendments enabling regions. After Plenary, Jeremy, Raziq, Sarah, Erik, Lincoln, and I went to lunch at Smash Burger and ended up having the most fascinating conversation that started out being about whether or no...

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Friday started with a very important Plenary session.  After a litany of reports from various committees and commissions and statements from (mostly unopposed) candidates for office, the Assembly finally got down to the business of passing a landmark Statement of Conscience: "Immigration as a Moral Issue."  The vote was quite swift, especially for something of this magnitude, and after incorporating a few small amendments, the 52nd General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations UNANIMOUSLY passed "Immigration as a Moral Issue." At UU Miami, we're already beginning to take action on the statement by partnering with community members to begin an immigration detention center visitation program at the nearby Krome Processing Center.  "Friends of Miami-Dade Detainees" came out of a conference the UU Florida Southeast Cluster of congregations held on "Immigration and Mass Incarceration."  We ...

Part 1 Part 2 While Wednesday is obviously the official beginning of General Assembly, it's also more of a warm-up day as it begins at 1pm at the earliest and much later for most.  Thursday is when the action really begins and for me it started off just right. First thing I did was head over to Panera with Erik and Jaime for some breakfast and then we all went to a workshop entitled "Six Words, One Image: A Worship Arts Immersion."  While it wasn't exactly what I expected it to be and there was a point toward the beginning where it started to delve a little too much into essentially being a commercial for Starr King School for the Ministry, it turned out to be really, REALLY cool and actually really made me want to go to Starr King (at least for that moment in time). The reason they talked so much about SKSM was that "Six Words, One Image" is actually a highly condensed version of an intensive program offered by SKSM.  The idea is to incorporate a da...

Part 1 Finally, the big day had arrived.  I spent most of the morning watching highlights of Game 6 on ESPN in the hotel room but around midday it was time for Young Adult Orientation.  It's always such a pleasure hanging with the YAs and especially hearing from the amazing YA leaders within our faith.  These folks are not the future--they are the present.  They're not standing around waiting for the establishment to hand them the reigns of Unitarian Universalism or pass the torch or whatever other idiom one might use.  They are asserting their voices within our faith, voices of progressive change screaming to be heard by ears weathered by years of polity and justice work.  The conversations, connections, and community I share each year at GA with these folks are, truly, the Roots that hold me close and the Wings that set me free.  More on that later. One of the most interesting things about the YA Caucus room was this awesomely creative art...

SUNDAY Here we were again.  The moment I had been waiting for all year had finally arrived.  General Assembly 2013 in Louisville, Kentucky.  My good friend Jeremy Ritzmann and I had been texting back and forth for weeks about how we could barely contain our excitement.  His wife Sarah even posted on Facebook that she was cleaning their apartment in preparation for me coming because every time I come it's a blessing which truly warmed my heart. Jeremy and Sarah with their son Judah I must have spent the better part of Friday and Saturday before I left figuring out everything I would need and packing it into one suitcase and one backpack--this included a small selection of comic books, a copy of "Behind the Kitchen Door" to have Saru Jayaraman sign, a copy of Robert's Rules (because you never know when it's gonna come up), and a multi-colored array of UU t-shirts. Flying in to Jacksonville is so beautiful I took a plane I could barely stand up stra...

Still getting super psyched to see the Heat vs the Spurs tonight on ABC. Texas is a great basketball state but Miami is gonna shut down San Antonio and end a proud Spurs dynasty to cement the greatest dynasty. The best part about the Heat is all the talent.

This is a modern classic with some amazing footage of Lebron and D-Wade and Bosh to accompany it.