“Children! You’re gonna die! That’s right. You’re gonna die! You don’t think you’re gonna die! You can’t imagine dyin’ right now, but one of these days, they’re gonna take you out to the cemetery, drop you in a hole, throw dirt in your face, and go back to the church and eat potato salad!” Christian scholar Tony Campolo shares about a long-time tradition on at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, an African-American congregation in West Philadelphia. Every year, the high school... Read more
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” The words are from Kurt Vonnegut, the art is that of a tagger on a hidden wall in Boulder, the city I used to live in. It aptly conveys the anxious end of an idyllic – though illusory – season in the lives of the white elite, including mine. This photo I took of it fits what I’m about to say. We in the West are facing something unlike most any of us under... Read more
No longer can I fake it No longer can I pretend No longer can I fool myself and others that when I say “God” I mean what they think I’m supposed to mean. No longer can I talk about a god six steps removed, as if God were the A-Team of attorneys, advertisers, and agents who write the contracts, book the guests, and place the products on Megatainment Tonight, where tinsel toothed theological celebrities talk about the forced formulas and... Read more
I recently had the honor to be a guest interviewed on the BiCurean Podcast. I had only learned of this greatly needed podcast in the past year. It is hosted by two people on a mission – a mission to help heal our broken culture and to inspire us toward a less polarized way of being and relating to one another in society. In their words: What is BiCurean? BiCurean takes typically combative topics and teaches them to play nice.... Read more
“They’re so wrong.” “They’re impossible.” “They’re never going to change their minds.” That’s a lot of they-ing and overstatement. And yet, I think that’s what we do – we write others off as beyond hope. All too frequently, I think we dismiss people who think differently than we do – patently, wholesale, and out of hand. We de-friend people on social media and reduce or avoid contact with co-workers, friends from our past, people at the gym, and even members... Read more
At the start of this new year, this last year of our current decade, President Trump ordered a drone airstrike to assassinate a high ranking military official of Iran, General Qassem Soleimani – the person largely responsible for the (near) end of ISIS. The assassination took place on Jan. 2, 2020. This action was the equivalent of a head of foreign nation ordering the killing of the Secretary of Defense of the USA. By any measure, an act of war –... Read more
Donald Trump has a name. So do you. I’ve been participating in the “Photo-a-Day Challenge” where people are invited to post photos they’ve taken to social media that relate to the theme assigned for each day. Today is the 19th day of Advent and the word assigned is “Name.” We all have names and many of our names have meanings. Some contend that our names are actually part of our identity – that consciously or not – we often end... Read more
“They’re so wrong.” “They’re impossible.” “They’re never going to change their minds.” That’s a lot of they-ing and overstatement. And yet, I think that’s what we do – we write others off as beyond hope. All too frequently, I think we dismiss people who think differently than we do – patently, wholesale, and out of hand. We de-friend people on social media and reduce or avoid contact with co-workers, friends from our past, people at the gym, and even members... Read more
I’ve done it. There have been times when I’ve allowed my identity to become wrapped up in some trauma that happened to me or grief that I’ve experienced. I’ve allowed myself to view myself primarily as a victim. I’ve poo-pooed other people’s journeys of healing because I hadn’t experienced “sufficient” healing in my own life. In times of such felt personal brokenness, to use terms popularized by Fr. Richard Rohr, I “transmitted my un-transformed wounding” onto others. He says that:... Read more
Dark Creature. i don’t know why i fell for you, perhaps one of those opposites attract sorts of things. you revel in gloom, lurk among shadows and thrive amidst snark, sarcasm and disdain you loathe things that nurture life you’re allergic to care and resistant to grace you fancy yourself a healing “uniter” but only dish-out hurt a textbook case of the cycle of abuse – you got hurt and now seek to knock others down to your bleak plane... Read more
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