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Re-reading

I rarely watch a movie a second time or tune-in to reruns of television shows, not even the ones I’ve really enjoyed or have made a significant impression on me. Exceptions have been: The Wizard of Oz, the first movie by which I was mesmerized into enchantment; It’s a...

Draining a Different Swamp

It’s painful to face and hard to admit: by the time I was a young adult, fear and shame had formed a dark and dank swamp in my heart. The swamp was fed by slowly-moving streams of culture, family, and folk-religion, streams which carried commands, words, stories, and...

Excavation

I recently spent a couple of days away from my cellphone, Facebook, email, and television. I can’t take complete credit for this media fast, since my cellphone wouldn’t work and there wasn’t a television where I stayed. The Sabbath from “Morning Joe” and “Hardball,”...

Bodies and Ethics

The prologue to the Gospel of John provides a powerful metaphor for meaningful embodiment: “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, a glory filled with grace and truth.”This metaphor goes by the name “incarnation,” the kind of word which...

Bodies, Laughter, and Singing

We meet and know each other as bodies: tall, lanky, short, squat, round, lean, and average (whatever average is) bodies; bodies with tattoos and piercings, with scars or sciatica, and with acne or arthritis; stooped and aging bodies, svelte and athletic bodies, sick...

Mr. Wilson and Dr. Seuss

My third (or fourth) grade teacher at Huie Elementary School in Clayton County, GA was Mr. Wilson, a young African-American man.I mention his race because it was the mid-1960s, and Clayton County wasn’t the most progressive part of metropolitan Atlanta, not by a long...

A Meta-Post

Years ago, when I started blogging, I intended to post some sort of reflection at least three days a week. My secret goal was even more demanding: to take the advice of master marketer Seth Godin who says that it’s best to post each day. He encourages bloggers to...

Downsizing

Over the last few years, especially when I moved out of my study at First Baptist Church of Asheville, I’ve culled hundreds of books from my personal library.During Lent this year, I took a critical look at the ones I still had and thinned-out the mixed herd.I...

Doing by Not Doing

For most of my life, I’ve used time as if it would never run out and burned energy like it could always be renewed. My focus has been on productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.  I’ve worked at everything, including not-working: playing was a project, resting...