The national gathering of Presbyterians in St Louis
I was getting ready to attend: (1/5)
Choosing Our Way, Unashamed
Wisdom is letting our smarts be subject(ive) to Christ. The great tradition embodied so well by Proverbs has much to teach us.
With a Little Help from Friends: “Plurality, Play, and Authenticity in the Most Influential Album Ever”
That’s a long title for some fun romping around on a 50th Anniversary
SIDE A: The concept, and what the Trinity has to do with it:
SIDE B: The personalities, and what we might have to do with it:
SIDE C: finishing up with the The Best Song From the Most Influential Album of All Time by the Best Band of All time:
Getting Loose, Free as a Bird, with God
First 8 minutes of Pentecost reflection on mining the seam between Law and Grace, and how the Institution cleverly incorporated an Anti-Institutional bias…
Carrying Freedom Forward
right before we dove into the PCUSA Book of Order Foundations chapter I introduced our discussion with this consideration of authority and truth…
A Million Pages In…
Got your summer reading plan yet? This is a great time to think about it.
I was somewhat effective during Lent limiting my on-line reading and getting back to a more disciplined hard copy, but I have collapsed since Easter into a previous bad habit I really want to break.
As long as I habitually check Google News, Huffpost, The New York Times, articles forwarded by friends and family, Facebook, Twitter, and such I get a steady diet of controversial and up to the minute re-hashes of all the events happening in our world. I say “all the events” because I can no longer pretend a lot of it is really “news.” I also get plenty of opinion and analysis. And some of it is really good.
But as a result I read fewer books than I used to a few years back. And that loss means I am often letting others determine my subject matter. Continue reading
Snowy 14-Miler
Some surprising late May hiking
finding our Way and “erring”
The real reason for wandering…
Mother Church’s Embrace
The grace that captivates us can feel a little too much. That may be by design…
Religious Freedom on Our National Day of Prayer
Our President in today’s Executive Order is trying to make it easier for churches and pastors to publicly support one candidate over another and push their congregants to do so, without fear of losing their tax-exempt status. This is probably a bad idea. It makes coercion and turning religion into merely a subset of political parties too easy, and it’s pretty easy already. Many say Evangelical Christianity has already sold its soul and become a mere subset of the GOP. I find it hard to argue otherwise.
I speak as somebody who talks relatively freely about politics and whose congregants usually know where he stands, for better and sometimes for worse. But we won’t be having any voter pamphlets at Genesis anytime soon. Continue reading
“Are There Any Questions?”
A story from Robert Fulghum
My Pres(by) Trump
At 100 days I am finally (!) developing some compassion for our beleaguered President. It has taken me a while. Trump has been caught off guard by the complexity of NAFTA, Healthcare, international relations… and now this week he has confessed the job is far more difficult than he thought it would be. I get it. That can happen to Presbyterian pastors too.
Millions of us knew he was not prepared to be President, and he has shown it in dozens of appalling and reckless ways. Our least equipped of Presidents is in way over his head. And it is seeing his flailing and failing in so many areas that has triggered in me, pretty late I suppose, some compassion in addition to my ongoing anger and judgment.
I don’t like Donald Trump at all. But something has begun to warm a little down deep inside. Continue reading
What Happens to a Raised Body?
A great question prompts early Ascension discussion as we finish Luke.
Remembrandts on the Emmaus Road
We are Social Poets, trying to recall how our hearts burned within us…
A Conifer(‘s) Life
From summer projects to winter warming, with many throws in between.
Oxen Draw: Reflections at 9,000 feet
The Nephew and Niece join a hike
Defensive Christians
These feel like hard days to be Christian, what with culture pushing against us and changing the rules. Church influence is on the decline everywhere, people are making laws about religious rights, and we really need to redefine ourselves.
But then I put my big boy pants on and realize hey! It’s actually pretty nice outside. Continue reading
