In the Air
The wind.It changes.Sometimes we can feel change coming, the wind changes, a fresh breeze, a new scent in the air. Wait for it.The wind.In silence wait for the change, a new season, a new heart, a new direction, a new purpose. Sometimes it feels like nothing ever changes. The air grows thick and stagnant.It is […]
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. […]
The Appearing
Jack Hardaway ] The small courier plane was flying low, too low, dipping and wavering back and forth over the tree tops, its engine sputtering and popping. It flew under some tall power lines, but didn’t quite make it. The tail snagged on the line, jerking the plane to a stop, and the plane plopped […]
Hope Takes Practice
Jack Hardaway ] “Hope is not a plan.” I hear that a lot. It’s an old and popular quote. I usually respond that hope is a theological virtue. Which always gets me a funny look. A theological virtue, that is a funny turn of phrase, it deserves a funny look. It is an ancient idea […]
The Mystery of Faith
Jack Hardaway ] What do we do when our world falls apart? The Gospel response is to hope beyond reason. We begin a short apocalyptic season today, the last two Sundays of the Christian year and the first Sunday of the Christian year. Three weeks that mark the ending and beginning of the Christian calendar. […]
Common Ground
Jack Hardaway ] We all love a good story. The stories we keep coming back to say a great deal about who we are. The stories we tell each other, reminding each other about. The stories we read over and over again. The stories we find our selves wondering about at random moments. It says […]
Cry Out Be Heard
Jack Hardaway ] Cry out. Be heard. That is the Gospel. The good news. Two brief turns of phrase. Call. Response. Pulling Joseph out of the pit, betrayed by his brothers. The Lord hearing the cries of his people Israel in bondage in Egypt. In the psalms, psalm 40, “he stooped and heard my cry, […]
Renewing Faith
Jack Hardaway ] Things fall apart. We wear out. We wear one another out. Bodies, minds, relationships. Faith. Faith wears out. Trust wears out. The invitation, the need, the opportunity to renew faith is always there. To renew trust. To plant the garden again. To plant another generation of trees. I’ve always been in awe […]
Joy Has Come to the Whole World
Jack Hardaway ] Joy has come to the world. The whole world. Through the Cross of our Lord. We forget that so easily. Today we remember and give thanks. The Gospel today at first glance is about divorce and children. A careful reading shows that it is about much more than that. Just like the […]
What We Leave Behind
Jack Hardaway ] So often blessings and burdens are so closely tied together. I have another Grandmother story. A short and simple one. I am the oldest of my generation in a large extended family, siblings, 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, first cousins once removed. One of the many things I heard my grandmother tell me […]
Pursued
Jack Hardaway ] We are being pursued. Relentless. Tenacious. Pursuit. The Shepherd is following us. Nothing stops the shepherd, nothing, even death, even the grave is crushed, setting the captives free. The Shepherd. Relentless. Tenacious. We are pursued. This is one of the great images of God, the Shepherd. Fierce, tender, in pursuit, single minded […]
Christ Haunted
Jack Hardaway ] Family is complicated. That would be an understatement for today’s scripture readings. David dancing before the Lord offering sacrifices every six paces, an ox and a fatling. That’s a lot of sanctifying life poured out onto the way, copious, as they moved the Ark of the Covenant. David’s wife, Michal, the daughter […]
Two Daughters
Jack Hardaway ] Stories. We are surrounded by stories. Stories of people and pain. The ease with which we can tell our stories, and the ease with which we can hear each other’s stories is one of those slow surprises that we have woken up to in today’s world. We are overwhelmed by each other, […]
The Great Storm
Jack Hardaway ] It was a dark and stormy night. A cliché. A melodramatic opening sentence. I grew up seeing Snoopy on his dog house with a type writer, using this turn of phrase, over and over. The weather without echoing with the thunder of the weather within. Ominous and foreboding symbolic action. But that […]
Good Dirt
Jack Hardaway ] One of my favorite all time bands over the years has been The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I enjoy them as much for their name as for their music. The Nitty. Gritty. Dirt. Band. Their first greatest hit collection is called 20 Years of Dirt. I love that title! Their second greatest […]
Falling Into Grace
Jack Hardaway ] Falling from grace. That turn of phrase, falling from grace, it carries a whole bunch of baggage. Falling from grace, originally it was a reference to Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden, choosing to elevate themselves in God’s place rather than being in communion with the Holy One. The turn of […]
Cliffhanger
Jack Hardaway ] Beginnings and endings. They draw us in and send us forth. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That is how Mark’s Gospel begins the proclamation. An allusion to the creation story in Genesis, a Genesis moment, a creation moment. We are drawn in to the […]
Spectacular Failure
Jack Hardaway ] What do we do with suffering? Explain it? Justify it? Turn away? Hide? Bury it deep inside? Push it away? Addiction? Distraction and numbing agents? Seek it out? Inflict it? Despair? Lash out? Offer comfort and company? Try to fix things even if it makes things worse? Try to feel useful by […]
Driven
Jack Hardaway ] Appearances can deceive. A purring cat that scratches. A dog wagging its tail that bites. A sunny day that rains. The beauty of nature and the danger of the untamed wild. The garden with poisoned fruit. And a wilderness whose fruit is medicine for the sick. And then there is the dove […]
Love’s Mystery
Jack Hardaway ] We take so much for granted. Food. The earth. Friendships. Family. Spouses. Parents. Children. Church. Freedom. Safety. Prosperity. Health. Democracy. Like so many other things, we take love for granted. And like so many other things we don’t fully understand or appreciate what we have, until we almost lose it, or it […]
Lifted
Jack Hardaway ] Changing directions goes against our inclinations. We gather momentum and turning aside is difficult. We collide. Collision repair is a busy industry. The repair shops have a significant backlog. Whole worlds collide, whole galaxies, the cosmos sparks with the echoes. There is that old science fiction movie from the early 1950’s, When […]
Caught up in Love
Jack Hardaway ] Most of us have joked about how painful, and difficult 2020 was. “What next?” was the refrain, followed by a comical litany of how things could get worse, like a comet colliding with earth. But, from the perspective of the Gospel, the Grace of God has flourished. It has been a year […]
Holy
Jack Hardaway ] Mark chapter one. Crazy times. Kind of like now. The air is tense. The legitimacy of the government is in question. There is talk of insurrection and reprisals. The capital empties, the entire city, and they head out to the wilderness, the countryside empties out too, and they go way out to […]
John Appears
Jack Hardaway ] This just in- John the Baptist has been sighted again. He simply appeared, like he always does, out of nowhere. In that same way that Elijah suddenly went missing in the sky, John the Baptist just drops back in out of the blue. This time he was seen out at the Anderson […]