Series of text messages from last night:
From my sister Emily: I always find interesting little surprises around after Zora visits. For example, I just got into bed and found a curious tiny orange cubic ’something’ near my pillow. What could that be?? Cheese, of course.
Me: Well honestly what is bedtime without cheese?
Emily: Unfortunately, it was a [...]
In part, for the sake of my own records, a few Zora moments that I want to remember for awhile. She is really, at 3, a very interesting person. And I am learning that interesting persons are not necessarily the easiest ones to raise.
Although she seems to enjoy being the water over the summer, three [...]
Words taken from sermons on Martin Luther King, Jr. are in italics. (With some adaptation, mostly for gender inclusiveness.)
Holy God, sometimes we look around and it seems the world is crumbling…
…war after war, division after division, injustice after injustice, violence upon violence, and sin upon sin, we are surrounded by a world where not only [...]
What a powerful editorial…the first paragraphs really stick with me.
I have family in Southern California. When there’s a big earthquake there, I worry a little, but not too much (the biggest disruption one of the last big one’s caused my relatives was my cousin’s disappointment that school was cancelled that day because there was an [...]
Warning: this is a theology nerd joke.
We are blessed with pastors at our church, both in quality and abundance. On Sundays there’s often a line-up of three behind whichever pastor is preaching. In other words, there are four of us: Carl, Melinda, Bart, and me.
Sometimes, certain members of the line-up get a little giggly. Yes, [...]
I’m sure what the following says about me. Am I:
(a) Hypocritical?
(b) Too enmeshed in the culture?
(c) (Oh, I hope this is the answer…) someone who lives in the tension?
Because tonight, I’m showing my youth group this movie clip:
And then, after a little discussion, we’re going to watch Elf.
It’s been a long day. Mostly church related. Not bad. Just long. I am tired, body, soul, spirit, voice and joints and the soles of my feet.
So, one quick thought, jumping off from a conversation with a colleague last week:
Advent is really supposed to be a season of preparation, pulling back, pulling away to prepare. [...]
In the middle of all these Advent stories about naming remarkable babies (Jesus and John), here’s a poem that has had me thinking lately about the importance of naming:
How badly the world needs words.
Don’t be fooled
By how green it is,
How it seems to be thriving.
“Willow” rescues that tree
From its radiant perishing.
How much more so [...]
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of the holy one, the true one,
who has the key of David,
who opens and no one will shut,
who shuts and no one opens:
Revelation 3:7
I’ve been to all sites of the 7 [...]
Dinner tonight is a good bellweather of how I’ve been eating lately…good intentions mixed with crap.
I made enchiladas from “scratch”:
corn tortillas (which I obviously didn’t make myself)
wrapped around:
locally grown squash that I roasted yesterday in a moment of inspired advanced preparation
pulled chicken BBQ of the big-grovery-store-bought kind, which I did not even read the ingredients [...]