Losing Control of Your Cursor I have several friends right now who are struggling with unexpected illnesses or accidents. One has a chronic debilitating disease. Another was mowing an elderly neighbor’s lawn and fell, fracturing her ankle, an injury that has required multiple surgeries. I’m sure they hate losing control. We all hate situations that disrupt our orderly expectations and habits. I even get upset when my mouse stops working. I can’t control my cursor anymore. So I change the... Read more

November 23, 2010 I’ve been at a conference for the past five days. It was a combined meeting of the Academy of Homiletics and the Society of Biblical Literature held in Atlanta. I’m suffering from meeting withdrawal. I miss wearing my name badge and walking back and forth across the skybridge between hotels 30 times a day in almost comfortable shoes. I miss the comforting sound of the elevators rumbling up and down the 27 floors at 2 am. The... Read more

Mary Catherine Hilkert, in her book Naming Grace: Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination, defines preaching as naming that which is not Grace and naming Grace in the world. Not just for preachers, but for all people of faith, naming that which is not grace is a prophetic, crucial prelude to naming grace, that which God seeks to do to repair the world, what the rabbis called Tikkun olam (repairing the world). Read more

Some people want God to be their safety man. Make their lives more convenient, keep his mouth shut, and not even speak when spoken to. Read more

I enjoy falling back every year. That extra hour is always a Godsend. More time to fold the laundry and unload the dishwasher and put the recyclables in the bin in the alley and mop the kitchen floor and write my Sunday School lesson and still be only 5 minutes late for the choir warm up at 9:15 am. Read more

Surrounded! 1 Kings 3: 3-12; Hebrews 12:1, 2; 12, 13  ” Sermon for All Saints Day”  My grandmother, after whom I am named, passed away in 2000 at age 95 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. She was one of a kind, like all the people we honor today. Cook Extraordinaire. Enemy of all moles- because of the damage they did to her acre garden. Impatient with a certain granddaughter who climbed the apple tree to avoid chores and read a book. Possessed... Read more

“Blackbirds and Haunted Houses” When my kids were younger I used to enjoy taking them to haunted houses. Nowadays, they’ve outgrown going to haunted houses with mom. I still string a few orange lights around the house and put a couple of pumpkins on the front porch, but it’s not the same. I miss my visits to the Haunted House. In the Dallas Fort Worth area where I live the Haunted House industry thrives in October with such attractions as... Read more

When I was younger, say in my teens and early twenties, May was my favorite month. I grew up in Pennsylvania and springtime was green shoots and chirpy birds and people who were naturally more cheerful because they didn’t have to shovel snow anymore. I liked October, but mainly for the candy corn and the costumes. Read more

The ad showed two people kissing and the caption read, "The original instant message." "What could this ad be for?" I wondered. Read more