Archive for December 2012

Taking the Boobies to Church

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” [...]

Radical Compassion

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 [...]

Baby, it’s cold inside

OK, I’m going to admit it. We do need heat here in California. This family of Northerners has been schooled. It turns out that houses of a certain vintage here (late 1940s) seem to not have insulation. Or storm windows. And, while our pipes aren’t going to freeze, it gets chilly at night. 37 degrees [...]

On Sandy Hook and Luther’s Second Use of the Law

(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 [...]

What to Say

“There are no words” says my wise friend Katherine, regarding the shootings in a Connecticut elementary school today. I’m saying the F-word under my breath quite a bit here, but I am now trying to figure out what on earth to say to my first grader when I pick her up from school in a [...]

On Santa and Calvin’s Third Use of the Law

It’s the time of year again, when we try to figure out what to do with Santa around here. And this year, I’ve reached some new clarity on the issue, with the help of Zora’s continually astute questions and a little assist from my dear John Calvin. To review, we never really told Zora about [...]