by Guy Sayles | Dec 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
Imagine that, under the Christmas tree, there’s a gift for you; it’s in a box about the size of a human heart, wrapped in shining bright green and topped with a velvety red bow. It has your name on it, but there’s isn’t another name. The gift is clearly for you,...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 9, 2014 | Uncategorized
Last Saturday afternoon, while walking downtown among crowds of tourists and Christmas shoppers, I saw and heard: An older couple fussing with each other about what to do next. They were coming out of Mast General Store. He had a huge bag in each hand. She...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 18, 2014 | Uncategorized
Some children’s greatest fears live underneath their beds, and their parents have gotten up many a weary night and gone to their child’s bedroom, flashlight in hand, lifted the covers, shone the light on the dusty floor, and proved, once again, that there is no...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 12, 2014 | Uncategorized
In a New Yorker article about Duke Ellington and race in America, I learned about a gathering of leading black jazz musicians at Yale University in 1972. There were three days of concerts, jam sessions, and workshops. Duke Ellington was there, as were...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 31, 2014 | Uncategorized
In my dream, the old man was dressed in once-elegant but now slightly-shabby clothes. He was in a wheelchair. Only with great difficulty could he manage to hold his head up straight. His dark eyes took-in the handful of acquaintances gathered around a...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 19, 2014 | Uncategorized
What follows is the text of a letter I read to the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Asheville at this morning’s worship service. Please pray both for me and for that wonderful faith-community as we enter this season of transition. Dear Friends, Across...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 17, 2014 | Uncategorized
Joy can be a trembling wonder. It’s like the trembling of a dog who wags his tail so hard that his whole body shakes when you come into the door at the end of a long day. It’s like the little girl who quivers with excitement on Christmas Eve. The days and weeks...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 29, 2014 | Uncategorized
Good friends give us the freedom to be who we are and to become our best selves. They help to disentangle us from ways of thinking and feeling which hinder us from reaching our full potential. They encourage us to break away from expectations and demands which chain...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 26, 2014 | Uncategorized
We live in a crowded and busy marketplace of competing faiths, dueling deities, and rival worldviews, which means that we have to choose, deliberately and intentionally, which god we’re going to serve and which way through life we’re going to travel. Bob Dylan...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 18, 2014 | Uncategorized
Years ago, I preached a sermon I still regret: a rambling, ill-focused, and sneering screed of a Palm Sunday sermon in which I took cheap potshots at parades. I talked about out-of-tune bands, out-of-sync drill teams, and out-of-shape military veterans crammed into...
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