Bless This Mess
Anything can happen. It always surprises me how quickly things get messy. I like to run early in the morning, at around 6:00 AM, especially in the summer. It’s quiet, hardly anyone around. I run around downtown first where it’s mostly just me and the homeless, then I go around AU a couple of times. […]
After Jesus
Grieving is the most powerful part of love. It leaves us tattered and full of the Spirit, it changes us, it leaves us with the power that parts the waters. Sometimes there are these times of stillness, in between times, in that nowhere on the way to somewhere. Lately I’ve been remembering this one day, […]
Shelter
Shelter from the storm. Have you ever had to seek shelter? From a hail storm, a blizzard, a tornado, a hurricane, a crazy world? Shelter from the storm. The Law of the Lord. It is a shelter from the storm. It is the shelter from the storm of swirling chaos that is always eroding creation. […]
Friendship with God
Now that it is planting and growing season it is also time to start getting ready for canning season. Getting all the jars ready, the lids, the rings, the spices, the special salt. It is fun watching a cabinet of clean, empty downturned jars, one by one turned upright and filled with all those colors […]
RELENTLESS
Easter 4b 2018 Ps 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18 22 April, Jack Hardaway Make no mistake, we are more than sheep. We are all either hired hands or wolves as well, or both. But there is only one Good Shepherd. That is the whole point of this day. Jesus. He is the shepherd of […]
Poaching
The stories we learn when we are young have a way of sticking with us. We go back to them. We remember them. We pass them along. They become part of us. To a large extent, we are each a collection of stories all jumbled together. We see the world and move in the world […]
The Mountaintop
I love stories that end happily ever after. The hero rides off into the sunset. Where everything gets resolved, the questions answered, the mystery solved, what was broke gets fixed, there is resolution. But I also love the story of Moses, and his story is none of those things. It does not have a conventional […]
You’re Hired!
You know those old cars. Not the antique ones that are all prettied up, but the old ones that you can hear coming. They have their own particular rattle and rumble that you learn to recognize. Here comes that old pick up with a faded pizza sign stuck on the roof, rattle, rattle, rumble, rumble. […]
Holy Ground
We all know someone like him. Who has everything. Who is gifted. Who has all the advantages. Everything is going for him. A bright future full of promise but who despite it all throws it away. Moses. Moses was a murderer. A life of privilege and miraculous rescue, yet he committed murder. It was an […]
From the Snare
I once rode a bus across the Rift Valley of East Africa. Though, I didn’t get to see much. The bus was literally packed three layers high with occupants. We road from Nairobi to Lake Victoria. By the time we arrived I was in pretty bad shape. It only took about six hours, but it […]