Excavation

by | May 27, 2017 | Uncategorized

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

by | May 15, 2017 | Uncategorized

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

by | May 9, 2017 | Uncategorized

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

by | May 1, 2017 | Uncategorized

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

by | Apr 27, 2017 | Uncategorized

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

by | Apr 17, 2017 | Uncategorized

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

by | Apr 11, 2017 | Uncategorized

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...

Ask, Seek, Knock

by | Apr 3, 2017 | Uncategorized

Many people aren’t sure about God. I don’t mean about God’s existence, though there are people who, for reasons of reason or of heartbreak or of both, have concluded that that there isn’t a god. Instead, I mean people who are unsure about God because they feel...

Reflections in a Troubled Lent

by | Mar 20, 2017 | Uncategorized

One of my Lenten practices is to reduce the amount of “breaking news” I watch. During last year’s election season, MSNBC was the steady background noise of my mornings and evenings.  Most days, there was less than an hour’s worth of actual news, but it got...

Lent and the Threat of Identity Theft

by | Mar 11, 2017 | Uncategorized

A few years ago, someone in New York got the number of one of our credit cards and spent a few thousand dollars in stores I never heard of on stuff I’d never use. He also got my Social Security number, filed a false tax return, and pocketed a nice refund. I was a...