Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. These are the closing words of Norman Maclean’s novella A River Runs Through It, as well as the movie based on it. It is... Read more

At The Center for Progressive Renewal, we have been pondering how we might create a resource for churches to teach members how to better handle personal finances. In the church world, the guru for that is a man named Dave Ramsey, whom you may have heard of. He apparently has helped many people get out of debt and, along the way, accumulated quite a fortune for himself. As I was doing research for our material, I came across a blog... Read more

I read an interesting blog post last week entitled “Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle.” (http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.F0U1x0m5.dpuf) Nate Pyle begins by describing a series of terrible events that had piled up in his life. He then declares the cliché “God won’t give us more than we can bear” and labels it a lie. What was fascinating was not how this young man struggles with reconciling the God of love with all the bad things that... Read more

Happy Epiphany, or 12th Day of Christmas, or Day of the Kings or …. Well, around the world, this day is celebrated in a myriad of ways (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday). In fact, in the United States, we hardly pay any attention to it at all. We’ve been bombarded with Christmas since Halloween (All Hallows Eve), and New Year’s Day was a nice way to end the holidays. Now, we are ready to move on. For many of us, today is the first... Read more

As the New Year approaches, let us step outside of the box and reimagine what it means to be the Church. How can you and your life minister hope in our world today? Read more

One of my favorite books is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (http://xmasfun.com/stories/Grinch/Text.asp) The moral of Dr. Seuss’s story is, of course, that Christmas is about more than presents and food. Christmas is about being together as family, friends, neighbors, people. It is about being in community and celebrating the relationships that we hold most dear. For Christians, all of that is good, but our story is so much bigger. For us, Christmas is about: Faith that light overcomes darkness. That... Read more

Several times recently I have been on planes with video screens embedded in the seatback in front of me. It was quite a novelty at first; however, as of late, it has been quite an irritation. Every time Delta asks me in a survey how my flight was I now complain about how they use these screens; thus far they have ignored me. Perhaps if you lend your voice to mine they might pay attention … but I doubt it.... Read more

Let us join Spirit in imagining our worlds, inner and outer, present and future, into hopeful reconciliation. Read more

Last week Suzanne Goldenberg of “The Guardian” tried to sound an alarm. She wrote: Conservative groups (such as ALEC) across the US are planning a coordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers’ compensation and the environment, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. The strategy for the state-level organizations, which describe themselves as “free-market think-tanks,” includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campaigns to reduce... Read more