by Guy Sayles | Oct 27, 2009 |
From time to time, people ask me what I’m reading. So, occasionally, I’ll post here the books on my current stack. I don’t necessarily recommend the books I’ll mention, and I certainly don’t always agree with them. But, I don’t read...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 24, 2009 |
We are living in an era of great upheaval and confusion. Sven Birkerts, a perceptive literary critic, said:We are living in a society and culture that [are] in dissolution. Pack this paragraph with your own headlines about crime, eroded values, educational decline,...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 19, 2009 |
There is an important distinction between curing and healing. Curing is the great gift that sometimes comes to us from God through medical care, the love and suppot of others, and the mystery of prayer. We recover: the cancer goes into remission; blood begins to flow...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 9, 2009 |
Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lighting and a lighting bug. The church is committed to the right words, lighting-flash words which illumine the mind, captivate the imagination, touch...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 6, 2009 |
Tonight, at our Deacons’ meeting, I offered a brief description of my understanding of “evangelism.” I’m posting part of what I said here.Evangelism is the process of saying and showing the good news of Jesus in such a way that people (1)...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 1, 2009 |
Lily, the central character in Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees, was haunted by the story of her young childhood, a story that included violence, abuse, and a tragic accident with a gun, an accident that killed her mother. By a strange but providential...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 30, 2009 |
One of the most astonishing things Jesus ever said is found in John 15: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 14, 2009 |
From yesterday’s sermon:William Ury, bestselling author and cofounder of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, wrote about a relative of his who struggled with alcoholism. He had tried over and over again to quit drinking, but even a serious car accident that...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 2, 2009 |
I read about a teacher in Harlem who wanted his students to get out of the city and spend a little time in open-country. He arranged to take his class for a week of camp in the great outdoors. Once there, one of the first things he did was to organize a baseball game,...
by Guy Sayles | Aug 20, 2009 |
This past Sunday, I tried to describe how our relationships with the people closest to us–our families, colleagues, neighbors, and fellow church-members–are crucially important; because, on the one hand, our love for them matters in itself. Our compassion...
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