The story of Anna and Simeon caught me by surprise as I prepared for my sermon last week, taking me on an interesting journey that I hope is meaningful to you as well. ______________________ When it comes to our Nativity scenes, we know the characters pretty well. At the center, of course, are Mary, Joseph,…
After I printed my last Advent sermon, I went back to save the file and managed to delete the text in the document before I saved it, which left me with nothing. Tonight, after scanning the printed manuscript to a PDF and then copying it back into a Word document, I was able to recreate…
One of the cool things about Guilford is a biannual event called GreenStage Guilford, which is four or five days of various live performances around town. This year, one of the spinoffs was a periodic Open Mic at The Marketplace, a local sandwich and coffee shop. I signed up, of course, because, well, Open Mic,…
incremental this shortest day was spent contemplating two long-lived lives alongside of sons and spouses caught in the anteroom of unraveling that opens into grief I had no answers I hardly had comfort I had only presence and a few words a few forgettable words in the midst of discussing details I said something about…
Two quotes found me today. The first is from Meister Eckhart, quoted by Christian Wiman in Zero at the Bone: Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. The second is from Jason Isbell, quoted in an excellent article by Taylor Brown in the Bitter Southerner: Giving other people the ability to harm…
poetic license I feel like a metaphor staring at a white screen not knowing what to write a week before Christmas or saying I spent the day driving through driving rain and wind that wreaked havoc and never turned to snow but it’s not the whole story I met a friend for lunch at a…
I preached about joy this week, which helped me as we get closer to the solstice and the daylight drips down to its shortest appearance. Joy is easier to recognize or feel than it is to preach about, but I gave it a good shot. _________________________ I amused myself as I worked on the sermon…
A little whimsy for a December evening . . . marshmallow farm here’s the thing many of us live near marshmallow farms without knowing they are rarities events rather than ongoing projects farms of fancy marshmallows mature stealthily hidden in fields of hay and are flash harvested to find them whole before they are cut…
My birthday gift this year was Burt Burleson, my most enduring friend whom I have known for almost fifty years. As a third-culture kid who moved around most of my life, I lost track of those I knew in my childhood and adolescence. Burt and I met in the fall of 1976. I can remember…
The emphasis for the second Sunday of Advent is peace, or in our version, just peace—not in the sense of only peace but of peace informed by justice. The scripture passage was from Mark 1 and described the appearance of John the Baptist. As I said in the sermon, talking about peace feels even more…