This has been one of those days when I have had music running through my head. It has also been a day of doing — of carrying out quotidian tasks — rather than reading or contemplating. So I offer songs tonight — a Lenten soundtrack of sorts — drawn from songs that have spoken to…
I love it when I get caught by surprise. I got up this morning a little early so I could read a little more Niebuhr and perhaps plant a seed tha t would grow into my blog post for tonight. I came away well fed by a sermon on 1 Corinthians 13: For now we…
We’ve had two absolutely glorious days in a row here in Durham. The mornings have had a bit of a chill, but not a serious one. Instead, they have quickly given way to the kind warmth of an early spring day — one that knows you need to feel the sun but are not yet…
I’ve carried a picture of the sunrise in the pocket of my mind all day long — the memory of this March morning: the promising chill and the sunlight that snuck up like a stage whisper, reminding me of . . . autumn. I know, I know — spring is not yet fully alive or…
Because I work at the computer store, I have an inordinate number of apps on my iPhone because most every time one of my coworkers tells me of a new app they have discovered, I end up downloading it. One of those is called “IFTTT” (If This, Then That) which allows you set up sequences…
Because my Lenten practice is to write everyday, I have found that means I must also read. I need to find fellow travelers — generally those who have walked the road ahead of me leaving something of a path to follow. What cooking and theology share in common is there’s not much that is…
My friend David Gentiles knew how to make gumbo. His mama taught him how to do it and he used her recipe. I never had a chance to let him teach me how to do it before he died, but on more than one occasion I would call him from Boston and say, “I tried…
my job tonight was to mix the ashes and the oil making from the charred remains a paste of penitence the sacred soot stared from the bottom of the plate as I poured olive oil from home and began to stir the ashes stuck to me like skin like they knew me turning the lines…
One Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, I posted a video on my Facebook page of a group called The Lone Bellow singing their cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” which is my favorite song. I captioned the post, “Here is our invocation for the morning.” A friend wrote back questioning the hope…
Most every year, I am struck by how hard the story must have been to live through the first time around when no one had any inking of Easter on Good Friday. Here’s how that idea came out tonight. then and now by the time Jesus died most everyone had left him in failure or…