Primary Election Thoughts
Neither party gives more than lip service to the values of large sections of American voters. And many voters don’t seem to care. After living through eighteen elections, it feels smashingly irregular to watch masses of voters swaying and clapping to rhetoric and propaganda on both sides. It’s scary. Going to vote last week felt urgently important, but I didn’t know how to vote. I wasn’t sure any candidate was qualified.
Divisions? Or Revived in Love?
Church Conflicts At times church conflicts are symptoms of buried personal pain seeping out sideways. For example, a friend of mine was abused in childhood. She grew up to mistrust all male authority figures. She challenged all male pastors. The husband of another friend was misogynistic; he was also a divinity school graduate whose issues had wrecked his […]
Random Thoughts on Deuteronomy 1
I LONGED TO BRING the Book of Deuteronomy alive for the ladies in our Bible study, but I didn’t know where to begin. When I confessed my uncertainty, a friend from the group asked, “What do you want to us to learn?” I knew right away. It was simple. I wanted three things. First, I wanted God to […]
1 Thessalonians 1:1
Although the words “Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” may seem like the automatic repetition of a formulaic New Testament letter writing convention, I don’t think Paul would have used them if they were merely empty rhetoric.
TAILING: Respect for One Another’s Safe Space
A friend said younger men don’t care and won’t read this because “everyone” knows that drivers are jerks these days. It’s a boring topic! And an over worked one too. He said my comments are outdated partly because of today’s well-made cars and seatbelts.
Christmas 2015
2015 has been a good year—filled with joys both familiar and unforeseen. Outside our window we’ve heard the calls of sand hill cranes, the chorus of frogs, and the wind moving through the nearby oaks and hickories;
Poems from Pursuit
Its light in colors lived and died
uncaptured,
a world apart
from all the raw and strain
upon my dimming heart…
Poems from Meet Me at the Cross
Flesh?
Yes. Songs and sores.
Sleep and eat.
“Oh sacred heart now bleeding”
All man-defined was there.
Spirit?
You bet…
Three Rifles
We used to keep a gun, hidden and unloaded. The shells were separate, in an unlikely spot under scraps of fabric in a sewing closet. In our rural township guns are tools, just like kitchen knives and garden spades. When they’re needed, they’re needed. So we guarded that gun and shells—for emergencies.
Essays in Ephesians #1
Some are personal devotions, others were written for group prayer, some are exegetical, and some tell stories. Some illustrations are true, others…
Praying in the Spirit
I DON’T LIKE the phrase, New levels, new devils. At every “level” I find old devils right where I am. I have trouble separating the idea of being seated with Christ in Heavenly Places with my own limited mental take on “levels.” Climbing up feels like work to me, like aspiring to a position […]
Divergent Thinking
Resting in the presence of God frees the mind to play, wander, explore. Contemplating total Otherness is mysterious. It spawns worship, healing, relationship, art, and sometimes, thought. The following ideas about creation/evolution surfaced in a quiet time—one set aside to rest in God.
