The past few days I have been captured by James Carroll’s book, Christ Actually: Reimagining Faith in the Modern Age, in which Carroll articulates what faith in Christ looks like in the light of the Holocaust. He begins with a question Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to a friend: “What keeps gnawing at me is this question,…
I spent part of my day working from a window seat at The Marketplace, a wonderful coffee shop-café-grocery store that sits on the edge of the Guilford Town Green, which is renowned as the largest town green in New England (almost eight acres) and was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park…
As Christmastide comes to a close, I come offering a collection of thoughts and words that have found their way to me over the past couple of weeks, mostly through my reading. John begins his gospel saying, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This year, his words have called me to try and…
I’ve allowed myself to become stuck in the aftermath of both the campaign and the election. The volume of discourse has been overwhelming, even when those talking on the same side. Opinions about everything from sexism to safety pins feel as though most all of them are shouted. I haven’t wanted to join in, even…
aftermath I didn’t watch the debate last night on purpose. I went to bed and woke this morning to screens strewn with the debris of comments and video clips like empty beer cups and hot dog wrappers left after a WWF cage match. Orange is the new angry. No. It’s the same old…
This is the manuscript of the sermon I preached yesterday at First Congregational Church of Guilford UCC. The text was Genesis 37 and the sermon was the beginning of a series on Joseph that Ginger and Sarah will be continuing. I titled it, “Further Along”. ______________________ Family: it’s one of the most comforting and discomforting…
When we lived in Boston, we would often drive back to Charlestown down the Cambridge side of the Charles River, which meant we passed the Museum of Science. We were sitting at the traffic signal one afternoon and read this billboard: Come visit the new planetarium at the Museum of Science, you tiny insignificant speck…
⋅I have been working on a sermon for this coming Sunday. I get to preach at our church for the first time. My text is Matthew 5:21-43 that contains the story of Jesus’ healing of the woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years, which is sandwiched between the account of Jairus coming to ask Jesus…
My mode of travel for my commute to the computer store in New Haven depends on my vacillating schedule. If I go in early and come home early, I can take the train, which is a twenty minute ride along the shoreline of the Long Island Sound and then a walk of a little less…
Pick up any good book on writing and somewhere early in the description of the process the author will say you can’t write well if you are not reading good stuff. One article I read recently even quantified it: read a thousand pages for every one you write. I’m not sure I can live up…