Something strange happens to me once in a while, and it’s happening now. I get this strange urge to quit. But I don’t know what it is that I want to quit. I love doing what I’m doing: preaching, teaching, caring for people and a community, painting, music, sculpture, writing, blogging. I don’t know anything else that I’d rather be doing. Even if I was independently wealthy, I suspect I would continue doing what I’m doing… just maybe better dressed.... Read more
Something dangerous comes with the turf I’m on. I have a passion for theological depth. I’m interested in the truth and that finds expression in my reading everything from biographies, brain science, philosophy, theology, atheism, people magazine… anything! On the other hand, I also have an intense interest in the summits of mystical insight, spiritual experience and passionate worship. I wrote on this about a year ago in relation to the Baal Shem Tov, an intellectual Jewish mystic. Is it... Read more
Lisa does not hesitate to sit me down and draw to my attention things that I’ve done or said that are wrong or hurtful. Like a skilled surgeon, she will take that incident and trace its cancerous shoots back to the ugly root that is embedded in my fallen brain with its sinful thought-patterns. I’d do the same for her. I never ever question her love for me. In fact, this kind of exercise is profound evidence of her love.... Read more
Please excuse me for using an analogy that is dated and offensive for some people. But as a pastor (a word taken from the root word for shepherd), I often have a useful picture of myself dressed in shepherd’s clothes with a shepherd’s crook sitting in the grass leaning against a tree overlooking the flock. The flock is gently grazing in the lush grass or lying down or drinking from the nearby stream. I might have a book in my... Read more
nakedpastor
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