Media 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…
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…
The Spirit came with wind and fire, so we close the windows, we put in sprinklers and smoke detectors, we have flame retardents and climate controls . . . . . . and not just in our homes. The Spirit came and transcended languages, so we erected bigger barriers, we buried our dry bones deeper,…
On 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…
All the cacophony: traffic in and out of the city; crying tourist babies, hushing tourist parents; troops changing the guard, marching, shuffling, barking (after all, a show of force keeps things safe); deliveries, the wheels groaning under the cargo as everybody tries to be done with work before sunset. The hucksters are hawking wares (of…
“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…
[As part of our Lenten journey, some of us at That Reformed Blog are blogging through the Lectionary. One of today’s readings is Psalm 19.] God has been speaking since before time. Long before the invention of writing (about 3200 BC in Sumer and Egypt, 1200 BC in China, and 600 BC in Mesoamerica[i])…
I 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…
Love, coming as a baby, placed us upon a throne. Weak and self-insufficient, that Love became our own, all inhibitions shed, a meal for all creation served in the House of Bread. Love we were not expecting (though it had been foretold) finds us afraid, defensive, so angry, empty, cold and offers warmth instead: the…
On Friday Arizona became the 31st marriage equality state. In a way it was anticlimactic; a judge stated that Arizona’s ban against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, and the attorney general decided not to appeal further. Ta-da! Since I am a Christian pastor, many folks assume that I am (or should be) morally outraged about this…
