If you haven’t already heard, consider this your invitation. The inaugural Wild Goose Festival is happening at Shakori Hills camp ground, not far from where I live here in Durham, North Carolina. Here is how the folks putting on the festival describe it: The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. We…
“Called as partners in Christ’s service”sings quite easily as a hymn,but we begin to get quite nervouswhen the reality sets in of what it means to live togetherlike our predecessors back in Acts:bonded by a faithful tether,always having each other’s backs. Sounds good – but it can get real toughwhen the conversation turns to cashand…
Dear Mr. Wallis: Yesterday, you published a post on your blog articulating why your magazine refused to publish an ad from the “Believe Out Loud” campaign, which calls for the full inclusion of LGBTQ folks in our congregational life. In explaining your choice you said, in part: But these debates have not been at the…
I went to sleep last night after hearing President Obama announce the killing Osama bin Laden and woke up to any number of blog posts and commentaries already written. You people need less sleep than I do – and I’m running on fumes. Those of us who love to put words to paper find moments…
Sometimes a life can get definedby a single moment or event:as the “doubter” Thomas gets confined,though that image does not represent the complexity of his whole beingnor his broken spirit on that nightwhen he spoke of touching and seeing —there’s not one way to grieve that is “right.” When Thomas asked to touch and seethe…
I did my best not to watch but couldn’t help but listen when they talked about it on the radio as I drove to work to play with kids and words the announcer spokeof the prince and hislongtime girlfriend . . .they were just pronouncedman and wife she saidand I wondered how it feels for…
Mary came to the grave yard aloneexpecting to pour out her grief;and she met someone she should have knowneven though their encounter was brief. She stayed after the others had goneback to town to tell Christ was alive;in the light that came after the dawnhe called her – and her heart was revived. And she…
When we moved into our house last summer, we moved into a home where the house had been fixed up (it was built in 1926), but the yard was – well – a trash heap, in the back at least. The front yard was mostly weeds, some prettier than others. Because we wanted Ginger’s dad…
Today was a cold and rainy day here in Durham. The sky never brightened beyond the dull gray of the clouds that rattled and wept most of the day. Here, where spring has arrived in full force, the temperature struggled to reach sixty degrees. In a week full of bright sunshine, the weather somehow knew…
Brothers and sisters, from where have you come? Such was the question that greeted us as we prepared to share Communion in our Maundy Thursday. Those of us scattered across the sanctuary had come from different places. The answer we were called to give in unison was compelling: We have come from the dust, and…