The way the story unfolds in John’s gospel, I think the disciples got increasingly nervous every time Jesus went to Jerusalem because each trip seemed to up the ante, as far as those in power were concerned. As long as he stayed in Galilee, the crowds didn’t matter so much. But when he came to…
We have had a grey and misty day around here, with a few moments of sunlight, but not many. The dampness in the air makes it feel colder than it is. When I sat down to write, it felt like a good night to share some songs that have found me over the past weeks,…
It’s an odd connection, I suppose. I was reading Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses and she was describing a painting of one of his English ancestors–a painting of “gentility”: an English country house and the men clothed in their privilege–and then went on to talk about what was “outside the frame of the painting,” which was…
exhausted (adj.) mid-17c., “consumed, used up; of persons, “tired out.” So says the etymological dictionary. The verb exhaust (“to use up completely”) goes back to the 1530s, but I think it is probably more than coincidence that the use of the adjective lines up with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, along with the Enlightenment,…
performative it seems like a cute reflex when a kid realizes they are on the stadium screen and they start to dance without the camera they would have stayed caught up in their cracker jacks or dreams of a foul ball but tell me there’s a chance my tweet could go viral and the dance…
emotional support books for umberto eco unread books were of more value than the read ones best for a library to hold what you don’t know reading is not conquest an exercise of trust page after page but what then of unreading the books that sit around in stacks or on shelves standing or lying…
Comedian Steve Martin had a routine in his early days where he talked about how much names matter. He said, for instance, you wanted you bank to be named First Amalgamated Federal National Bank so you felt like your money was safe. If it was called Bob’s Bank you would be less likely to invest…
To reference the Mark Knofler song that shows up at the end of this week’s sermon, this has been a week when I felt like the bug rather than the windshield. I’m hanging in there, and I found helpful insights in Jesus’ parable about the fig tree (Luke 13:1-9). Perhaps they will help you, too….
night vision for Nathan Brown, Poet Laureate of the Apocalypse, on his birthday the moon was up before darkness fell round and bright like the Pixar lamp that turns and looks then it made room for a night-sky filled with tiny desk lamps casting light for one tired poet and another or maybe they are…
evening prayer the world is quiet in our town the moon shines through clouds as if God is under the covers reading with a flashlight I can hear no bombs or see any tracer rockets no buildings are burning no one has to hide to be safe I have done nothing to earn this quiet…