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Christmas is for Children–for all of us

Sometimes, we say that “Christmas is for children.” That’s true, but only if we remember that this season’s story of divine surprise has the power to make all of us children again—to help us live in childlike openness and wonder. Feel the wind in your hair. ...

A Changed Relationship with Time

This Advent season is the second since I left the pastorate, and I’ve not yet reset my internal clock. Since this past Friday was graduation at Mars Hill, I am on leave until after New Year’s; on what used to be one of the busiest weeks of the year, I’m relatively...

The News that Matters

I’ve been trying, without much success, to make sense out of this troubling season in our national life. The trouble has bipartisan (multi-partisan!) sources, but, candidly, my greatest bafflement is about the meaning of Donald Trump’s election for who we are and...

Beauty in and Beyond Words

I recently reread Norman Pittenger’s The Lure of Divine Love, a book I first picked-up more than 30 years ago. It’s an accessible and winsome reflection on “process theology,” but the joy of savoring it again had as much to with his style and perspective as with his...

Jesus Doesn’t Belong to Us

Amid all the Christmas gift-buying and holiday party-going, there may be a moment or two when some people who don’t think much about Jesus will wonder about him. Brilliant and troubled writer David Foster Wallace once asked: “Does this guy Jesus Christ have something...

Grateful for Gratitude Itself

I’m grateful forFamily and friends (including the shaggy, four-legged one, Ellington)Colleagues and studentsBuskers on the streets of AshevilleFinely crafted sentences and intricately simple musicStreams, rivers, peaks and hollows (hollers)Soaring hawks and swimming...

Here and Now: Little, Local, and Daily Things

Leaves whirl like dervishes in the insistent wind. The smoke of burning forests bites my eyes. Sunlight shines through cloudless skies onto parched ground. The mountains moan for rain; stubbled valleys echo their wordless, desperate prayer.Fall’s changes anticipate...

When It Feels Like the End of the World

I’ve not known what to say in response to the election; but the challenge and gift of preaching on Sunday, November 13, at All Souls’ Episcopal Cathedral resulted in this sermon. Rather than try to edit it for a blog post, I am simply posting the entire...

Dying to Live in the Moment

Yesterday afternoon, as the last Bioethics class of the week began, a student said, “Let’s not have a downer today.” I understood completely.  For several days, we’d talked about life and death—about how we know when someone is clinically dead: when...

Name-Calling and Ivory Soap

Name-calling and “cussin’”were bad things my grandparents, parents and teachers told me not to do. My grandmother Ada once took a chunk of Ivory Soap (“99 44/100 pure”!) in her hand, held it less than a half-inch from my lips, and threatened to wash my mouth out with...