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Creative Tension

This week, schoolchildren headed back to the classroom, the 12 Days of Christmas culminated in the Feast of Epiphany, and the reckoning with credit card bills from December’s shopping sprees has begun.  College football fans, especially in the South, made plans...

Beginning in Thanks

As the New Year begins, I am grateful for so much:Poetry, music, and “children’s books.”Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon.Restaurants where I don’t need a menu.Restaurants where I not only need a menu but a translator and guide.Our “puppy” (eight years old!),...

Affirmations for the Year–and the Life–Ahead

“I wouldn’t give you a nickel for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’d give you my life for simplicity on the far side of complexity.”In a lecture he gave when I was a seminary student, Ernest Campbell, then the preaching minister at the Riverside Church in...

From the First Beginning

My great-grandmother Tiny (her name was actually Tina) was a “character.” One day, while sweeping her front porch, she slipped and fell down the three or four stairs that connected the porch to the walkway.  She hurt her ankle, but managed to get to her feet and...

The Storm-Child

I cherish the quiet of very early mornings on days like Christmas Eve, times when “not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse,” when a text or an email isn’t arriving, a tweet isn’t chirping, and no one is yet calling. This morning, around 5:00, there were...

God’s Great Smile

Every year since 1977, I have led a Christmas Eve Communion Service, often more than one.  For 38 Christmas Eves, I’ve had the honor of joining the angels’ surprising announcement: “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people, for...

We Can Trust in Surprises

I enjoy Christmas—always have. I look forward to children’s pageants, complete with Burger King crowns for wise men, bath-robed shepherds, and aluminum foil-wings for angels; misty-eyed singing of “Silent Night” in the glow of candlelight; watching George C. Scott as...

With Truth and Grace

Lately, I’ve felt that our culture is like a house full of teenagers left alone for too long without any adult supervision. There’s a lot of noise. The television is on, music is blasting, and nearly everyone is talking to, or texting, someone who isn’t in the room....

Thanksgiving and “Church”

Many of the Thanksgivings and Christmases of my boyhood were spent in Huntington, WV. Both sets of my grandparents lived there, as did a wide circle of other relatives. On the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, as soon as Dad got home from work, we’d pile in the...

Living in and by Love

Since my college days, I’ve had a recurring dream. On a rainy Sunday night, my car breaks down in a small, rural south Georgia town. The only gas station that boasts a real mechanic won’t open until Monday morning. The only available food is nearly day-old fried...