Being Born
Jack Hardaway ] Being born is a pretty traumatic experience. So I hear. I don’t remember it myself. Though I do remember my three children seemed to find it pretty upsetting. There was this silly movie years ago, Look who’s Talking, where the babies talked, Bruce Willis was the voice over for the main character. […]
Wanna Wrastle?
Jack Hardaway } Have you ever noticed that sometimes those who suffer rejection end up becoming very welcoming and inviting people? They become the kind of people who have the true gift of hospitality of reaching out and inviting. We hear today part of the story of Joseph. “I am Joseph”, he says. And boy […]
A Hot Mess
Jack Hardaway So get this. Jacob, of all people, has 12 sons and one daughter. They become the 12 tribes of Israel. Of course, only God would choose Jacob’s children to be the chosen people, to bring the Lord’s light to the nations. What could possibly go wrong? You know Jacob’s parents were rolling over […]
Knock Down Drag Out
Jack Hardaway ] Make no mistake. God is dangerous. Sometimes we forget. To encounter God is to be wounded in the case of Jacob, blessed, but also wounded. For the disciples it is to be moved to silence as they walk quickly downhill toward the cross. God and suffering are always in close company. Holiness, […]
Jacob’s Ladder
Jack Hardaway ] A place to call home. People to call family. That was all that Jacob wanted. Connections. Being connected. Communion. And he would do anything to make it happen. And that was what got him in trouble. Homeless and on the run. He tricked the wrong people. He gambled and lost everything, looking […]
Jack Hardaway ] If only Jesus had known about zucchini. I’m sure he would have had a parable about it, the parable of the zucchini. Crazy amounts of produce in a mad tumble of green sticky leaves. A parable of surprising abundance. God plants crazy gardens. That is what we hear in the Gospel today. […]
Ravishing
Jack Hardaway ] Love stories. They are everywhere. The drama, the allure, the drive, the passion, the fear, the betrayals, the longing, the grief. We are both drawn to them and repelled by them. The sappy sentimentalism, the longing for the ending of loneliness, the bitter disappointments, endless soap operas stretching across the time line […]
Unseen
Jack Hardaway ] I bump into things. Bumbling around in the dark, or not looking where I’m going, distracted by something, or just past the edge of my peripheral vision, or blinded by the sun in my eyes. What I don’t see leaves me black and blue. What I don’t see has consequence. So, I […]
Something About Martha
Jack Hardaway ] Well imagine that! Sisters not getting along. It is such a rare thing for sisters 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 […]
Teeming
Jack Hardaway ] My first Bible was a birthday gift from my grandparents, when I turned seven years old. It was an illustrated children’s Bible, The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, by Kenneth Taylor. I still have it. Mom would read them to me, in the mornings, before I walked to school. We sat […]
Count the Stars
Jack Hardaway ] Have you ever counted the stars in the sky? The more we count the more they seem to keep popping up. Stars defy counting. As if the act of observation changes them, causing them to multiply. Star light, start bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may I wish […]
Dark Secrets
This is the story of a family. More specifically it is the story of a family with dark secrets that destroy it. Surprisingly it is also the story of bringing good out of bad. It is a story that shows us something about God and the way of God in a world full of dark […]
Rude Awakening
How sweet it is when a trickster gets tricked! When the sneak gets sneaked! When the player gets played. When the wily one gets wily-ed. Justice is sweet. These make the best stories. Jacob has the proverbial rude awakening. In a scene straight out of a National Lampoon movie, Jacob wakes up next to the […]
A Family Thing
I have an old family Bible. One of those Bibles with extra pages to write down information about the family: births, deaths, causes of death, marriages, genealogies, significant events. It goes back about 150 years. The family tree has a way of branching out and wandering around. I wouldn’t call it so much a tree […]
The Hospitality of Sarah and Abraham
Details. It is all in the details. So much of life is found in the details. It is easy to get lost in the details, overwhelmed in the details. But it is in the details that life either flourishes or flounders. Being ready. Preparation. Having a heart, and a mind that are ready, that are […]
Child of God
“Now Jack, remember who you are.” I’ve spoken many times about my grandmother, and her frequent reminders for me to remember. Clearly, I was very forgetful. When I was older, and was ordained as a priest she would still be aghast at my continued forgetfulness, my general sassiness. Except now the reminder became, “Jack, remember […]
Count the Stars
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Have you ever forgotten about the stars in the sky? I forget. I know they are there. I just don’t notice. I stop looking up. Granted the night sky isn’t what it used to be, with the haze of city air and the glare of city lights, or […]
Under the Table
Family gatherings. What do we do with them? I have a large extended family. Most have stuck nearby. No need for reunions. We have several gatherings every year. It is always a chaotic stampede of the old and young, people dropping in and out. One of my favorites was when we had a surprise wedding […]
Living the Dream
This is the story of a family. More specifically it is the story of a family with dark secrets that destroy it. Surprisingly it is also the story of bringing good out of bad. It is a story that shows us something about God and the way of God in a world full of dark […]
Face to Face
I grew up watching rerun episodes of classic TV westerns like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Maverick, the Rifle Man and Stage Coach. Saturday afternoons seemed to often have cowboy movies, spaghetti westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and a Fist Full of Dollars. But, my favorite cowboy wasn’t on in the afternoons or evenings, […]