The Stewardship of Anger

by | Mar 30, 2016 | Uncategorized

The anger is palpable, isn’t it? The presidential primary campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have, in different  ways, focused and channeled a lot of the anger people feel.Trump and Sanders diverge radically from each other in their fundamental...

Tomorrow Today

by | Mar 27, 2016 | Uncategorized

In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, a freed slave, Paul D. tells, Sethe, a woman who escaped slavery but cannot escape her haunting memories: “Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.” Easter is the tomorrow we yearn for, the...

Surrender

by | Mar 26, 2016 | Uncategorized

Bruce Springsteen sang the truth I experienced this past Thursday evening at All Souls Cathedral: “In the end, what you don’t surrender, well, the world just strips away.”After we shared the Maundy Thursday Eucharist, the church gradually descended into thicker...

Conversations about Calling

by | Mar 24, 2016 | Uncategorized

One of many gifts I receive from my students at Mars Hill University is our ongoing conversations about vocation and calling.  As they get closer to graduating, they inevitably ask questions like:“What’s next?”“Grad school?  What discipline and where?”“A...

I Can’t Make Him Beautful Enough

by | Mar 22, 2016 | Uncategorized

Words are both fragile and sturdy vessels.  Like rafts on storm-tossed water, they sometimes break beneath us and leave us stranded at a far distance from the mystery and meaning we sought to reach. Not always, though; they also may take us beyond the horizon of...

God’s Will?

by | Mar 17, 2016 | Uncategorized

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”Jesus taught his followers to acknowledge that the earth doesn’t yet fully flourish under God’s gracious rule of justice and peace and to pray that it will. He invited us to join him in his longing for...

The Political Circus and Ordinary Life

by | Mar 15, 2016 | Uncategorized

It’s hard to take my eyes off of the three-ring circus of the current political season. There are ringmasters from the media; strongmen who bend rights and break values; young trapeze artists who fly high on ambition; sellers of snake-oil made from focus-group...

Deeper Stillness and Wider Awareness

by | Mar 9, 2016 | Uncategorized

For “Christian Ethics Engages U. S. Culture,” a course I’m teaching this semester at Mars Hill, I’ve been revisiting the writings and witness of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), who stands at the headwaters of what eventually became Christian existentialism. He was a...

Hard Conversations about Mercy and Justice

by | Mar 8, 2016 | Uncategorized

Yesterday, I had a fascinating conversation with some folks who are trying hard to understand how their downtown congregation can effectively be “salt” and “light” for their community and region. They’re compassionate and generous people who genuinely want to make a...