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Jesus Doesn’t Belong to Us

Amid all the Christmas gift-buying and holiday party-going, there may be a moment or two when some people who don’t think much about Jesus will wonder about him. Brilliant and troubled writer David Foster Wallace once asked: “Does this guy Jesus Christ have something...

Grateful for Gratitude Itself

I’m grateful forFamily and friends (including the shaggy, four-legged one, Ellington)Colleagues and studentsBuskers on the streets of AshevilleFinely crafted sentences and intricately simple musicStreams, rivers, peaks and hollows (hollers)Soaring hawks and swimming...

Here and Now: Little, Local, and Daily Things

Leaves whirl like dervishes in the insistent wind. The smoke of burning forests bites my eyes. Sunlight shines through cloudless skies onto parched ground. The mountains moan for rain; stubbled valleys echo their wordless, desperate prayer.Fall’s changes anticipate...

When It Feels Like the End of the World

I’ve not known what to say in response to the election; but the challenge and gift of preaching on Sunday, November 13, at All Souls’ Episcopal Cathedral resulted in this sermon. Rather than try to edit it for a blog post, I am simply posting the entire...

Dying to Live in the Moment

Yesterday afternoon, as the last Bioethics class of the week began, a student said, “Let’s not have a downer today.” I understood completely.  For several days, we’d talked about life and death—about how we know when someone is clinically dead: when...

Name-Calling and Ivory Soap

Name-calling and “cussin’”were bad things my grandparents, parents and teachers told me not to do. My grandmother Ada once took a chunk of Ivory Soap (“99 44/100 pure”!) in her hand, held it less than a half-inch from my lips, and threatened to wash my mouth out with...