I Trust

On a day in late June, before sunrise, I was in the rocking chair passed down to me from my grandfather, having read the morning lessons and a poem or two. I was troubled, for good reasons: the rising death-toll from COVID-19; the murder of George Floyd, and the...

Interlocking Crises and Getting in Good Trouble

photo: wkrg It’s bewildering to reckon with the interlocking crises we face. To name only some of them: soaring case-rates of COVID-19 infections, overburdened hospitals, politicization of mask-wearing and school-opening, rising unemployment, nonprofits cutting staff...

Choosing Silence and Being Silenced

Often, I crave silence. I long to retreat from the noise of news, the sirens of social media, the din of demands, and the clamor of emails and text messages. I know that, if I retreated for a long time, I’d experience FOMO, the fear of missing out, but that’s not a...

Loving the Neighbor and the Neighborhood

I heard Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) for the first time when I was six years old,  during summer Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Church of Conley, GA. My teacher illustrated the story with flannel-graph figures of the priest, the...

A Time for Lament

Nearly 129,000 Americans have died of COVD-19, and the number of cases is growing rapidly. Along with the pandemic of illness, there’s an epidemic of loneliness. Many people are sustaining severe economic losses. There’s intensified and justified anger about...

Jesus, the Virus, and Not Wasting an Apocalypse

(Purl’s Yarn, Asheville) I’ve written and deleted a half-dozen posts about the Covid-19 Pandemic, I’ve deleted them because you don’t need my opinions about medicine and you don’t want my political commentary. What I mostly wrote was a series of rants—cathartic,...

Anger, Frustration, and Grace

This year’s assignment for inner work during Lent came as an unsought gift and demand. On Ash Wednesday, between a midmorning meeting and an early afternoon medical appointment, I went to the noon service at All Souls Episcopal Cathedral. I looked forward to being...

Needing Each Other, Yearning for Divine Love

For the last 2½ years, I’ve had the opportunity to serve as interim pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in West Asheville. January 26, 2020 was my last Sunday with them. Here are a couple of outtakes from my sermon for that day, “Living is Jesus,” which drew themes from...

Not Regretting Life

Bluesman Paul Thorn sings: Then we’ll both look back Over where we’ve been We will have no regrets When the long road ends I resonate with his hope. I think it’s possible to come to the end of life’s journey and feel at peace about where we’ve been and who we’ve...