Searching
It has been fifteen years this morning, a generation, since the September 11th terrorist attacks. We begin another year of Sunday school today as well. It is a good time to be reminded just why we study the gospel and shape and form our humanity with the gospel. It is about much more than raising […]
Cost
Have you ever been unable to finish something that you started? Apparently, I have a personality trait that likes to start projects but I tend to go on to new projects before finishing the first project and on and on and the result is a life cluttered with unfinished projects. You don’t know anybody like […]
Where to Sit?
I love games. Especially the kinds that children play. All the variations of Tag and Chase and Hide and Go Seek, Ring Around the Rosie, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, Duck Duck Goose. Musical Chairs. Now musical Chairs is interesting. What do we do when there aren’t enough seats? We march around until […]
Sabbath
Sunday. Sabbath time. Growing up, the day just sort of lasted forever, it just went on and on. Church, Sunday dinner, visiting, maybe some time to play. There wasn’t all that much to do or anywhere to go. Church, food, visiting, sitting around. I understand the gift of it now, but then it just felt […]
God’s Run
God puts on the old tennis shoes, some Converse All Stars. God goes down to the track, to the starting line, he gets set, the gun sounds and God runs, God runs the race and he doesn’t quit until all the world runs with him. The Olympics have been a very welcome and needed change […]
Keeping Vigil
Waiting in the dark for a light to turn in the driveway, for the sound of car doors and footsteps. Waiting by the bed of the broken, waiting for healing or small comforts during that slow decline. A young child learns to walk and the parents always, always watching out, bleary eyed desperate for coffee. […]
Under the Sun
You all know the old joke about the two friends who loved baseball so much that they wondered if they could play it in heaven? One of them died and came back in a dream. He told his friend he had some good news and some bad news. The good news is that yes there […]
Making the World Real Again
Ole Pharaoh and his dogs are at loose in the world again. Dismantling reality, decaying creation, twisting the goodness of things. Preying on the weak and the poor and blaming the defenseless for all the evil of the world, finding easy targets and weak minds to bend toward destruction. Making slaves. That’s what Ole Pharaoh […]
Mary Martha
Well, imagine that! Sisters not getting along. It is such a rare thing for siblings to disagree! Siblings. So close, so much alike, yet so different, so much love but not enough room… We all know about sisters and brothers, we either have them or have been around them. I think about the horrible things […]
Consuming Mercy
Life is brutal. We try to sugar coat that fact, but ultimately life is fatal. Life can be like robbers attacking a passing innocent and unsuspecting stranger, unexpected and violent. Sometimes we survive…for awhile. Sometimes we don’t. What do we do about it? Do we hide from the suffering? Do we walk on by? Do […]
Say the Word
I was recently given a stack of a fun magazine to look over called Garden and Gun, kind of like if Southern Living were edited by Charleton Heston. (You’ll have to pry this magazine from my cold dead fingers!) There was this article about favorite Southern things, it had the typical things, grits, manners, family, […]
Release
Have you ever noticed that freedom seems to be contagious? Something comes up, the infection takes hold and then the next thing you know people are being set free all over the place. Paul and Silas setting free a possessed slave girl. The foundations of the prison are shaken. Chains are unfastened. Prison doors swing […]
God Tag
“Tag! You’re it!” I loved playing tag as a child. I was really good at it. I wasn’t only fast, I could zig and zag better than anyone. The only way to catch me was to get a big group and surround me or be really good at zigging and zagging, in which case you […]
Out in the Middle of Things
I recently became a smart phone user. I’m one of those late adoptors. Lillian, our middle child, showed me how to put music on it, so now whenever I get in my truck the music on my phone starts to automatically play on the stereo, whether I want it to or not. Not sure how […]
Bad Religion
There is bad religion and there is good religion. There is religion that inflicts suffering, that makes others suffer. And then there is religion that suffers for the sake of others. And it all gets lumped together. Two ways of being that are so different are often called the same thing. Which religion do we […]
An Idle Tale
I don’t believe it. That is the usual biblical response. It is funny that the bible, a book of belief, is full of so much disbelief and consternation. An inspired sense of humor seems to have been written between the lines. What does it take to believe in the resurrection of Jesus? There isn’t much […]
For Our Sake — Palm Sunday
Would we be free from the burden of sin? Free from passion and pride. Free to praise, free to serve Jesus our King. The cleansing in Calvary’s tide, the life giving flow. Would we be free? Blood. A day of blood. For our sake. It’s about time to decide what we believe. Do we believe […]
The Revelation of Mary
What does belonging to Jesus look like? I could talk about what it means, the words, the ideas, the things we say we believe. But today is not for that. Today is about what it looks like to belong to Jesus, the touch, the feel, the smell. How we live tells us what we really […]
Prodigal Gospel
In the 1970’s, my Grandmother worked at a bridal shop on Main Street in Greenville. I was a very young child, I remember the smell of fabric and gardenia perfume. The whole place made me feel itchy. Grandmother would bring me and my brother Geoffrey there from time to time to show us off. It was […]
Not Dead Yet
Where do you find God? What is God like? Scripture gets used appropriately and inappropriately for all kinds of things, but for me scripture is really about those two questions. I don’t see scripture anymore as the place where I handpick the correct combination of dos and don’ts to get God to like me. Where […]
Waiting
Have you ever tried counting the stars? Counting the stars takes a long time, the more I look the more stars there are to see. It takes a long time, it involves a great deal of waiting, and well…counting. Life seems to involve a great deal of waiting. We wait for little things like traffic […]
Ash Wednesday
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Those are the words for when we commit our dead to the ground with the casting of earth. We’ve been hearing those words a great deal lately. We are imposed upon today with the ashes that are the reminder both that we are going to die […]
All That is Left
As a priest I have always been curious about how clergy are portrayed in television and in movies, especially at weddings and the sermons that are preached which tend to be silly at best, or vacuous or at worst hate-filled. My favorite is the Bishop with the speech impediment in The Princes Bride and […]
The Body
Have you ever heard the old southern comedy routine about the difference between naked and neked? I don’t remember whose routine it was but the difference ends up being that nacked is our birthday suit as in Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden. Neked is different, it means you ain’t got no cloths […]