I Will Bring You Home

Last updated on: December 16, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

Baptist preacher’s kids get to do some very odd things. I memorized large portions of the Bible under duress, including–as a dutiful five-year-old–the names of the books of the Old Testament minor prophets to an obnoxious sing-songy tune. I could run through all of them in one breath—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. These obscure texts were written in a distant time for a distant people in contexts and for reasons known only to the... Read more

Constellations

Last updated on: December 12, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

I love the stars. Not as in “Dancing with . . .” or in Hollywood or Washington DC. I mean the stars in the heavens. The night sky in rural Vermont where I grew up, far from the glare of urban lights, was a source of endless wonder and entertainment. Part of the attraction of the stars was their sheer beauty and mystery, providing a glimpse of light-years past history; this was heightened by my love of the stories of... Read more

The Real War On Christmas

Last updated on: December 9, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

A few days ago I stumbled across one of the most remarkable tweets I have encountered in my limited experience with Twitter. A friend retweeted something from the Twitter feed of Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman turned conservative talk-show host, who had this to share: If Jesus was back among us, he’d be a law-abiding gun owner. He’d support the Police. And he’d say “Merry Christmas” not “Happy Holidays.” This, of course, led to a number of creative responses,... Read more

Being a Fanatic

Last updated on: December 7, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are off to great starts, just as the soccer team completed an Elite Eight season. I am happy to reminded of why I am a sports fanatic . . . Sunday morning kneeling at the altar rail as the communion assembly line does its thing is not a great place to be having less-than-holy thoughts. Up past midnight the night before, up at six this morning, I could think of dozens of things... Read more

That Hopey Changey Thing

Last updated on: December 5, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

Although I was raised in the most non-liturgical version of Christianity imaginable, I love liturgy. When I was introduced to the annual liturgical cycle when I encountered the Episcopal church in my twenties, I found that I particularly resonated with Advent, the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas that kicks off the liturgical year. Advent is the season of hope and expectation, which this year is particularly welcome. Because for many of us, hope is a particularly scarce commodity these... Read more

What Cuba Taught Me About My Faith

Last updated on: December 2, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

For many reasons, I have been interested in Cuba for the past dozen years or so. With Fidel Castro’s death a few days ago, all sorts of memories and thoughts have flooded back. The standard news coverage has been of the “Miami Cubans” dancing in the streets and celebrating, various political figures noting the passage of a repressive dictator, and speculation about how soon capitalist markets will start influencing Cuba’s socialist economy. My own experiences with Cuba brought me to... Read more

What Goes Down Must Come Up

Last updated on: November 30, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

Sunday’s Psalm invited us to go to the mountain of the Lord–which reminded me of a hill-climbing event that I wrote about not long ago . . . PREPARATION “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord,” asked Psalm 24 at Vigils this morning. Psalm 24 is a “Psalm of Ascent,” one of a group of songs scattered throughout the Psalms that scholars tell us were sung by pilgrims as they ascended the hill to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. “Who... Read more

To Whom Do You Belong?

Last updated on: November 28, 2016 at 6:30 am By Vance Morgan

During this academic year, my college is celebrating its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the highlight so far of a series of events scheduled to mark the anniversary has been a lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin in October. We arrived early enough to sit in the second row, twenty feet or so from the podium, and along with a packed house were held spellbound for over an hour as our favorite historian used examples from the lives of Presidents about... Read more

Fixing and Healing

Last updated on: November 25, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

My doctor says that I am his most boring patient, because there is never anything wrong with me. I show up for my yearly appointment, my blood pressure is good, my weight fluctuates within a five pound range, my blood work is always fine—my only complaints are spring allergies, for which he says “take Claritin,” and occasional sciatica problems, for which he suggests that I should stretch more. I have never been in a hospital overnight except when I was... Read more

Who Is Their God?

Last updated on: November 21, 2016 at 7:30 am By Vance Morgan

I recklessly thought that if something could save this election, it would be the faithfulness of Christian followers on a spiritual journey of seeing creation as God does – worth fighting for. Christians would be the ones exercising their witness in order to defeat a whiteness that does not care whom it has to destroy on its path towards power, and ultimately toward a perverse kind of deification . . . God’s followers are supposed to rebel against this idolatrous notion.... Read more