by Guy Sayles | May 14, 2014 |
French poet Paul Eluard said: “There is another world, but it is in this one.” Late one afternoon last week, after a long walk around town, I sat for a while on a bench near the courthouse in City-County Plaza. Almost directly in front of me, on the stone-paved...
by Guy Sayles | May 6, 2014 |
Here is the Call to Stewardship from this past Sunday. Some of you had asked to see it again: Commodities, things, labor, experiences and gifts all have cost, price, value, and worth. Cost is the amount of money it takes to plant and harvest, mine,...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 22, 2014 |
Not long after I came to Asheville, the Republican Men’s Club of Buncombe County invited me to their breakfast meeting to tell them about myself and my hopes for our church’s future. It’s not my practice to speak at meetings, formal or informal, of political...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 21, 2014 |
We have a deep and pressing need for hope. It takes hope for parents to bring a baby into the world, to hold a little one in their arms and to become, from that child’s first breath, the people most responsible for providing what that child needs and for shaping...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 14, 2014 |
Take heart and hope from the promises of this Holy Week: when you feel good and glad, Jesus joins your parade of celebration. When you gather at the table with people who love you, Jesus is there; he serves you the bread, and he offers you the cup. When...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 12, 2014 |
Several years ago, I realized that, for a long time, I had been fighting-back tears whenever I would see children run gleefully around a playground or hear them squeal with delight as they played, or notice their wonder over wildflowers, squirrels and birdsong. ...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 4, 2014 |
As I make my slow way through this frequently labored and often labyrinthine Lenten season, I am grateful that Resurrection lures us toward the future which it has already opened-up. Light and hope stream into our present circumstances; they show us that love is...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 24, 2014 |
One of life’s crucial lessons is that we are responsible for how we use our ability to pay attention. We are stewards of our capacities to notice, to focus, and to consider people, the world around us, and God. We choose what to do with our...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 20, 2014 |
We learn some things sequentially, a step at a time: first the basics, then intermediate challenges and, only later, greater complexity. Like math, for instance: learn to count, to add, and to subtract; then, to multiply and divide. After this basic...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 11, 2014 |
“I know why the caged bird sings,” wrote Paul Laurence Dunbar. It is “a prayer the he sends from his heart’s deep core. . .a plea that upward to heaven he flings—I know why the caged bird sings.” Slaves in the cotton fields sang, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,...
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