Reformed, Hopeful, Always Reforming
My mind has been whirling with phrases, and the whirling has not been such a good thing. Phrases like, “abandonment of post,” and “ministry of presence.” Of course, lots of other phrases are now mantras for everyone: “an abundance of caution,” and “shelter in place.” For chaplains and pastors, pastoral care has meant, at its […]
Read More A Ministry of PrescienceAfter 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.He led a protest march because the city lost what it was built to be, to call it back. They led a protest march because the city left behind its purpose, and they called it back. He poured out all he was to set right what was wrong, emptied his life so we would all […]
Read More Palm Sunday, 2018Just because God vows “I will remember no more,” that’s not forgetting. Just because the seed, Jesus, fall to earth and dies doesn’t mean it ends. God never forgets, lives forever with the pain, but won’t call it back. Christ dies to what was, dies with all the world watching, giving up […]
Read More Lent 5, 2018Sometimes I wonder if we have romanticized the idea of the wilderness, as though the wilderness was a place where things were more real, truer, more natural than what we experience day-to-day. We seek out wilderness by taking camping trips, or going for a hike. We long for it as some kind of respite from […]
Read More Wilderness, DeconstructedI begin this blog post with a rather shameless plug. The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, working with the RCA Archives and the RCA office for Women’s Transformation and Leadership, announces the beginning of the First Stories Project. Congregations are being invited to conduct oral interviews with the first women to serve […]
Read More The Quest to Tell Stories BetterThe last in a series of entries in an imaginary journal, as we think about what might have been in the mind of Mary. “God has helped God’s servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy, according to the promise made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” It was a long night. […]
Read More Mary’s Pregnancy Journal–Final EntryContinuing a series of entries in an imaginary journal, as we think about what might have been in the mind of Mary. “God has sent the rich away empty.” The government has ordered a census. Some officious idiot in Rome thinks it’s nothing to drag whole populations back to family homesteads just so they can […]
Read More Mary’s Pregnancy Journal–Entry NineThe fourth in a series of entries in an imaginary journal, as we think about what might have been in the mind of Mary. “For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name.” Elizabeth’s baby is special, too. For one thing, he is a feisty little guy; part of […]
Read More Mary’s Pregnancy Journal–Entry FourMedia vita in morte sumus—Antiphon, ca. 750, probably from France. That antiphon translates “In the midst of life, we are in death.” It appears in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church as well as in Latin liturgies. It was part of the “Committal Service for One Who Has Lived Apart from the […]
Read More Pastoring from the Midst of Death