“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” – Micah 6:8 Micah really hit it out of the park with that single sentence… pure poetry. “He has told you, O Mortal, what is good,” and it has to do with justice, mercy, and humility. Aesthetically, it’s beautifully written. Plus it has the added benefit of offering... Read more
2014.06.08 Pentecost Year A Acts 2:1-2 Today is a big day in terms of church Calendar; the culmination of many months of telling Story of God. We’ve walked thru Advent, waiting for God to show up, longing, crying out in the darkness. We’ve walked through Christmas—incarnation—and the life, teaching, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Today we celebrate a new era in the life of people of God: the birth of the Church, & the good news of the power... Read more
“There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly… Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,... Read more
I confess that the blurbs are all in, and the foreword came through for Shrink last week, which means that everything I’m responsible to help with in terms of content for the book is crossed off the list. I have been overjoyed at the response from the early readers. Scot McKnight wrote the foreword, and blurbs have come in from Stanley Hauerwas, Walter Brueggemann, David Fitch, Christopher Smith, and fellow Patheos blogger Erin Wathen. I confess that I always chuckle... Read more
Music has always been a pretty big part of my life. When I was a little boy my dad was a football coach. During August two-a-days, while he was drilling his players late into the dusk of the evening my mom would put us four kids around the piano and teach us a song to perform for my dad when he got home. It was weird. What’s even weirder is that we didn’t even pretend to not enjoy it. We... Read more
I’ve had a lot of bad summer jobs. I drove a school bus for summer school. These kids were not happy. I drove a vending machine route–not glamorous. I did, however, quickly get over the embarrassment of buying cheeseburgers with dimes. Worst summer job had to be working ball diamond maintenance, dragging and chalking fields mowing and trimming weeds while it was 110 degrees in the shade. Start time 6am. Ruined my view of morning for at least two decades.... Read more
I’m reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, and continuing to reflect upon the nature of prayer and the presence of God. If you dive into this work, you have to know Dillard spends an inordinate amount of the book reflecting on the minutiae of the ordinary–the intricate details of nature of which she is an astute student. It’s a contemplative thing to read her work, so you kinda have to be in the mood. Nevertheless, it did win... Read more
This is the sermon I preached last week at Redemption Church. I borrowed heavily from a great sermon Barbara Brown Taylor wrote and published in her book Home By Another Way – which is essential for any pastor who preaches through the lectionary. If you are a pastor, feel free to copy and steal everything. 2014.06.01 – Easter 07 Ascension – Acts 1:6-14 We are entering into the final days of a journey that started clear back in the beginning of... Read more
I’m reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard right now. This morning I was reminded one of the great lessons Dillard, and others like her, have taught me about prayer. She says that when you actually catch a glimpse of the holy, you are innately aware at the time that it is so rare and precious, that you know instinctively that you can no more catch hold of it than you can catch hold of a sunbeam. If you... Read more
I confess that I have initiated operation woodpecker lockout. I didn’t really give it a name, but it’s getting pretty real around here nonetheless. I have previously confessed my fear of heights. (Technically, I’m not afraid of heights I’m afraid of falling. And not so much falling as hitting the ground at a high rate of speed and breaking something. And not even so much breaking something as just general pain. So I guess I’m afraid of pain & that’s... Read more
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