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Songs of the Caged Bird

“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,...

In Time

In his novel, The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes has the narrator, Tony, ruefully compare his life to that of his old friend, Adrian: What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully?  Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? ...

The Will of God?

In the model prayer Jesus gave to his followers, Jesus urged us to talk with God about, among other things, how the world isn’t yet the way God wants it to be: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Latin American theologian Leonardo...

Traveling Mercies

When I was a boy, there were Sunday night services at the First Baptist Church of Conley, GA.  When a service would finally end—too late to see the Wonderful World of Disney or to catch the end of the Ed Sullivan show—our pastor would call on one of our deacons...

“The Way It Is”

The title piece of William Stafford’s “New and Selected Poems” is “The Way It Is”:There is a thread you follow.  It goes amongthings that change.  But it doesn’t change.People wonder about what you are pursuing.You have to...

Choices When There Aren’t Many

Freedom, joy and generosity grow in us when we see ourselves in the true light of God’s abundant grace—when we allow God’s own generosity to heal our eyes so that we may see that there is more than enough, especially more than enough love, for all of us.  Our...