On this particular Easter, in a year when you’ve been hearing from the Good News from the Gospel of Luke, here’s a way you might might help bring good news. Luke, as Maren Tirabissi reminds us, was a Syrian doctor. Earlier this year, she wrote: Go ahead and say it out loud, all this lectionary [...]
A few links that are about the fact that nobody’s perfect. While folding laundry last week, I made my way through the PBS series Makers: Women Who Make America. You should watch it. Even if you are among the many women (and, for that matter, men) who would rather not use the term “feminist” as [...]
I’ve been following the papal election with interest because I have more in common with Catholics than I don’t. In other words, Protestants and Catholics disagree with each other on a relatively small percentage of doctrinal points. It’s just that this small percentage makes the most noise. So I’m praying for them and their process. [...]
Let’s do this sometime midweek, every week, OK, folks? A few things I’ve found interesting, this week, many of them more or less related to family. My family had one of our best family dates ever this past weekend. Not everything went as planned, but we had a wonderful time rambling around Golden Gate Park [...]
A not-really-so-long time ago, I was trying to figure out what my next ministry step would be. I had spent two years teaching religion at a school in one of Chicago’s not so affluent neighborhoods, and I was finishing up a year working at a big (affluent) urban church. I was considering taking a position [...]
A few years ago, I invited Bob and Laura Keeley to my church to speak to parents about their book, Helping Our Children Grow in Faith. (What? You’ve not read this book? Get a copy and read it!) That night, they mentioned the word “mishpaha.” It’s Hebrew for “family.” Kind of. Because it doesn’t mean the [...]
Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day, A breastful of milk And a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel Which adore. –Christina Rosetti Last Christmas, in the middle of an eight month hiatus from church pastoring, my family attended “The Big Church” [...]
I have a six year old who is in the first grade a school that is demographically similar to Sandy Hook. Her class is filled with children with the same names as those of the babies who died at that school. It is incredibly easy for me to have compassion for those children, for their [...]
(When I posted on Calvin’s third use of the Law and Santa Claus, I really had no intention of another “use of the law post”; and certainly not for this reason…but, here we go) As I watch the Christian social media reactions to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I’m seeing some posts along [...]
We drove from San Carlos to Eugene, Oregon and back over the weekend. North on the California coast, and then back south through the middle of the state. (In between those drives was lovely time with Erik’s family. Really lovely. But this is about the drive. Also, Oregon is lovely. But we spent most of [...]