I watched the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for the first time the other night. Then I read the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In both versions, Benjamin Button is born an old man who gets younger as he ages. When he looks old, he’s actually young and when he’s older, he has the body of a child. He had a few short years in between where he looked and felt the same age. Isn’t this the... Read more
There’s an axiom in advertising: “Half of all advertising is wasted – you just don’t know which half.” The same can often apply to time. How much of our time is wasted? How much time do we invest in rest and relaxation, which can often appear to be spent “doing nothing?” Do we use our time efficiently, or do we allow our time to pass by, unnoticed? There are: 86,400 seconds in a day. and 8,760 hours in a year.... Read more
You pull into your driveway to see that the neighbors you don’t know very well have put a Trump campaign sign in their front yard. You have racists next door. Because at this time, after well-known Republicans have taken a stand for country and decency over party and bigotry, the only reason left to support Trump is racism. The end result doesn’t matter – tax cuts; the appointment of conservative, activist judges to ignore 50 years of precedent and strike... Read more
My grandmother taught in a one room school house. She was sixteen, teaching all grade levels, nearly 90 years ago. She went on to earn her Master’s degree and teach into her 60s. Her sisters were also teachers, including one who was the high school English teacher of actor John Malkovitch. Can you imagine trying to teach first graders through high school seniors, simultaneously? Can you imagine trying to do it at age 16? There’s an ancient curse, “may you... Read more
Students and alumni of Liberty University, here is your president: Yet again, Jerry Falwell Jr. makes a mockery of the morality his school claims to support. His comment of “black water” mocks the hundreds of thousands of Liberty supporters who oppose drinking alcohol. About the photo? Should any 58 year-old pose this way? Here’s a link to his explanation of the photo. He claims he went on vacation on a yacht in pants that didn’t fit so he posed with his... Read more
What is faith? Is it our belief in God? Or the confidence we have in ourselves? Is faith the trust we put in others? How do we measure something so personally believed and often so publicly lived? Sometimes we find our faith out of step with the mainstream. We disagree with friends and family, because our faith is more complex. More nuanced. We see the world in vivid color, not black and white. Many of us share questions about faith,... Read more
In the movie Field of Dreams, Ray, his wife and daughter, and Terrance Mann can all see the baseball players. Outsiders can’t see the men on the field so it looks like they are sitting around an empty field, watching nothing. But to those who can see, it’s wonderful watching old players play. That’s what faith is. For non-believers, for those without faith, church looks like people sitting around praying to a non-existent God. But some of us can see the players.... Read more
If you enjoy reading from a progressive Christian perspective, you’ll love Faith, Hope, and Baseball, the heartwarming, debut novel from Faith on the Fringe creator Jim Meisner, Jr. Faith, Hope, and Baseball is the charming story of Jason Yoder, a baseball phenomenon who is offered a contract to play baseball for the Chicago Cubs. The money would help his widowed mother with a growing stack of bills. But Jason is 17-years-old and Amish. He must choose between his Amish life... Read more
My grandmother taught in a one room school house. She was sixteen, teaching all grade levels, nearly 90 years ago. She went on to earn her Master’s degree and teach into her 60s. Her sisters were also teachers, including one who was the high school English teacher of actor John Malkovitch. Can you imagine trying to teach first graders through high school seniors, simultaneously? Can you imagine trying to do it at age 16? There’s an ancient curse, “may you... Read more
I learned an important lesson about race in the United States from an African-American classmate in seminary. He seemed to always be around the offices. I don’t know what year he was in our school of more than 300. I believe he had a part time job with the seminary, or like me my senior year, had an independent study with a professor. I knew he already had one advanced degree and had deferred his admission to a Doctoral program... Read more
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