Just one link today. Had the chance to go out for a nice little super last night–a modicum of wine, a gorgeous lamb chop, the cozy indoor sparkle on a balmy night, the giant tv looming over us all with the sound off, closed captioning on, and CNN roiling away in its usual swirl of self importance and outrage. We sipped our wine and watched an appalled person standing in the snow in Colorado nodding and speaking and nodding. ‘Planned... Read more
Thanksgiving is a seminal moment in the church year, not for liturgical reasons so much, but because of where it falls on the calendar. Without it, a person, like me, would not be prompted to panic about Advent. And a little panic is in order because Advent is my favorite season of the church year. Being basically a rebellious person, I really enjoy doing the opposite of what everybody else is doing. If someone strongly suggests I do x, my... Read more
Today I’m thankful, without any reservations, For Matt and his boundless patience and also that he does the turkey. For Elphine washing everybody’s bedding this week including mine. For the relative health and robustness of the children. For the freedom to worship publicly. For the witness of Christians around the world who haven’t given up, or given in, even in the face of persecution and death. For the witness and love of the people of Good Shepherd and their devotion to... Read more
I happened, in the early hours of this morning, to listen to the sweep of chapters in 2 Samuel that take David from fugitive to King of Judah, through political upheaval to being King of Israel, to bringing the Ark of God to Jerusalem and finally to his sin with Bathsheba. This is familiar, well worn language. The names aren’t a surprise, nor the rhythms of the text. However, like several other moments in scripture, the familiarity only increases the... Read more
In the spirit of thankfulness, which, like the spirit of Christmas, is kind of an angsty fit for me, I want to deviate from my normal garbaging up of the Internet and join in the blogging giveaway going at tweetspeak. They’re giving away lovely beautiful copies of Laura Brown’s Everything That Makes You Mom. You should stop reading this and rush over there and enter, but then come back here and read this, which is my own entry–a song of... Read more
It appears to be snowing and also, I’m petty sure I need to haul three children off to the dentist post haste. Why did I think 8:50 would be an ok time for a dentist appointment? 8:50 is when I should be still lying around in bed catching up on the Internet. It was that sort of weekend. Yesterday we had the final installment of I Corinthians. We started this book the first Sunday of July 2014 in an innocent... Read more
Yesterday, as I was posting about our new puppy, news reports of an attack on a hotel in Bamako, Mali were hitting the airwaves and news feeds of everybody waking up. It’s not the first attack, in that city, nor likely to be the last. And, of course, Boko Haram struck again. Last week I indulged in an autobiographical interlude and gave a “talk” about my growing up in Mali. It’s really more of a question and answer time where... Read more
After a long week of politics and craziness it’s time to devote ourselves to what really matters, the new puppy. One Last Friday, upon discovering that the puppy jar had gone over the $100 mark, and then explaining to the children that they really needed to keep working at it and get all the way up to at least $200 or maybe even $1000, who even knows, you probably can’t even get any kind of dog at this time of... Read more
An outraged friend, which for me is the best kind, sent me a link to a video of a father and son, in France, placing flowers at the concert hall that was attacked in Paris over the weekend. The video is no longer available, but the transcript quotes the father as saying to the son that we will “match the mean people’s guns with flowers and candles.” Under the video are the words ‘tres preciuex’, or, ‘how precious’. Mmhhhhmmm. Precious... Read more
Here is the reflection I gave last night at the annual thanksgiving service. Enjoy! I must say, I was sort of appalled when I found out the thanksgiving service was going to be a whole week before thanksgiving. I feel fairly rushed along, lately, by the world. Before I’ve ever given a thought to the beginning of the school year, there are school supplies in my face. Well before I have been able to give a millisecond of thought to... Read more
Preventing Grace
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In