The wildernesses of life aren’t simply intellectual phases or emotional seasons in life. The danger and disorientation of our wildernesses are visceral. There’s real pain. The threat of despair is real; the humiliation and the tears are real. In these seasons we’re...
The story of the Prodigal son is one of Jesus’ best. It’s probably better entitled, the story of the Loving Father. The father’s love, despite the resentment of one son and the foolishness of the other, holds the family together. Sometimes family division and...
Before Moses becomes a deliverer of his people, he’s a felon in the wilderness. What changes him from a rogue to a reformer is a new intimacy with God. Out of a blazing bush, he hears God whisper his name and the name of his ancestors. The story climaxes with God...
By baptism, and the order that comes with that, God has and is growing a colony of heaven on the earth. Lines on a map and petty political partisanship are too small to contain what God has planned for us, and wants to accomplish in and through us. Still, to be a...
God uses the wilderness to give you a clarity about who you are and whose you are. It’s a clarity that often eludes us in abundance and comfort. That’s Jesus’ story. He was in the wilderness. That was hard. He was interrogated by the devil there and in a...
Jesus went up a mountain to pray. This simple practice gave Jesus all the clarity and connection he needed to face evil, find and carry out his purpose and even face death unafraid. So what is prayer? In our tradition, “prayer is responding to God, by thought and...
We continue to struggle to speak of and learn from our history. Increasingly, states and jurisdictions are banning the study of and conversations about slavery and the holocaust. At this pace, one wonders will we also ban conversations of woman’s suffrage? The...
Each follower of Jesus remembers a “once.” That is, that first day, or unforgettable situation when the trustworthiness of God became crystal clear. The crowd wanted words from Jesus, he gave a few. But, no words he gave that day were more spectacular than, “leave the...
We were made by a free God for freedom. The bible tells us that God is on a search and rescue mission for God’s beloved human family. Overturning anything that would limit, ensnare and dominate us is what God delights to do. The world with all its beautiful...
At most weddings, we quote St. Paul, “love is patient, love is kind, love does not insist on its own way.” We swoon so much at those words we miss the punch line at the end of the chapter, “…put to an end childish ways!”. In other words, grow up! If I could give the...
