Reformed, Hopeful, Always Reforming
After a full day of reminding people that they are dust, mortal, and needing to repent, I’m ever more aware of how many times my colleagues and I try to help people make decisions about their loved ones’ care. Most often, the realities of today’s words about our mortality are seldom integrated into family conversations […]
Read More Remember that you are…dust. And mortal.Friday, 26 June 2015, was a wonderful day for many people I know, love, and respect. The Supreme Court of the United States declared laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in the US to be unconstitutional. People who have been socially outcast have another public sign that this discrimination is not acceptable. Now, we can argue, from […]
Read More Why I’m Not Yet Wearing a RainbowOn 21 April, jurors in Boston will decide the fate of Dzhokhar Tzarnaev, who has been convicted in his role in the Boston Marathon bombing two years ago. He is subject to the death penalty, and, a bit over a week ago, on the Comedy Central series “The Nightly Show,” host Larry Wilmore spoke of […]
Read More Capital Punishment at EastertideLook at this! Branches off the trees . . . old cloaks on the road, all trampled and torn . . . donkey droppings, right up to the Temple steps . . . This all has something to do with that Jesus fellow, doesn’t it? Doesn’t he know some of us have to clean this […]
Read More Palm Sunday, 2015Today in the Lectionary, I was surprised to find Luke 1: 26-38. This is the Annunciation story, in which Mary is told by the angel Gabriel, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Most High will overshadow you,” and that she will be having a baby; “for nothing is impossible with […]
Read More Nine Months and Counting…Isn’t it lifeless? Isn’t it broken-down rock, dust with some moisture? Hasn’t it been trapped, under ice and snow all this time, under underfoot? How can it be warm, have an odor, be . . . vibrant? Does this have some life? Can life be breathed in? Can it give life to this seed, cold, […]
Read More Lent 5, 2015“The reason our churches are shrinking is because church has become just one option among a sea of options on Sunday mornings.” “It used to be that everything was closed on Sundays. People didn’t have all these distractions keeping them from coming to church.” “If we want to bring in young families, we need to […]
Read More The Sickness of BusynessThe snake was the lowest, the dirtiest, of all the creatures in God’s creation. But it was smarter than those two humans in a Garden; it only took shiny fruit and ego polishing to humble them. Those twelve tribes of humans in the desert humbled themselves, and the snakes had a meal. But God was […]
Read More Lent 4, 2015“Destroy this Temple . . .” What? An act of vandalism? I would never do that. “Destroy this Temple . . .” Desecrate a holy place? I never even take coffee into church. “Destroy this Temple . . .” But it’s an institution! A landmark! I only have a problem with radicals, like you. “Destroy […]
Read More Lent 3, 2015I meant to do my TRB post yesterday; really, I did. There have been lots of thoughts running through my head, and it has been a couple weeks since I concluded my Advent-Christmas poetry cycle. So, I spent a significant amount of time yesterday pondering a topic. And getting nowhere fast. Why was that? There […]
Read More Why I Haven’t Been Preaching About Paris