I spent the weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains helping with a retreat for Holy Covenant UCC from Charlotte, so I was not at my church for worship or World Wide Communion Sunday. The focus of the retreat was on the Psalms. Nancy Allison, a longtime friend and the pastor at Holy Covenant, pointed out…
I went to a workshop this afternoon at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke because I’m taking my kids there in a couple of weeks to see the exhibit called “The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl.” I have to say I was surprised at how many different ways vinyl records could be made into…
Based on the last few Sundays, today’s text included, you would think Jesus talked a great deal about taking care of the poor. Ginger quoted George Buttrick (“Fundamental neighborliness is a barometer of the soul.”) and then asked these questions: What issues do we dodge? How do we gate ourselves off from the world? Whom…
It was the Late Eighties. Those were the days when CDs were new and my collection was highlighted by bands like The Alarm, U2, Big Country — to name just a few — and The Call. The guitars ripped, the drums pounded, and the keyboards did that thing keyboards did in the Eighties. Those bands…
I stopped by the bookstore this afternoon, after spending the day at a workshop to learn how to use the software supplied by our yearbook company, with the hope that Mary Gordon’s book, Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter with the Gospels, had come out in paperback. (These are not hardcover buying days at our house.)…
The lectionary text today was one of Jesus’ more difficult parables to understand. Here’s what the text and Ginger’s sermon took me. We met today to worship, pray, and sing,and heard the call to shrewdly help the pauper;my mind played “Money Changes Everything” –the lectionary led to Cyndi Lauper. I looked up shrewd. It says:…
At several different junctures in my life, Parker J. Palmer has befriended me and mentored me through his writings (in particular, The Courage to Teach and Let Your Life Speak). I have never met him, nor have I ever heard him speak, yet I have found a healing resonance in his written words that have…
Ginger had a chance to go to Big Tent Christianity in Raleigh this past week. I didn’t get to go, but got to hear some great stuff second hand. Tonight’s sonnet comes from some of those gleanings and the question I am left to ponder: what are the responsibilities of a privileged disciple? Seventeen million…
the dig in the dirtgo to bed tiredspread out the gravelplant the trees and vegetables days the creak in the kneescrust in the knucklescome back in five yearsto see how it all worked out days the plot the resurrectionslam the door opensay thanks for the helpgive thanks for the pups days the listen to the…
I had a church-less weekend since Sunday was my turnto stay at home with Reuben, who is ailing;I planted in the garden and gave the beds a turnWhile he sat and snored and set the “z”s a-sailing. I was not there to stand in line to taste the Bread and Cup,the food that’s fed the…