We’ve been downsizing, trying as much as we can to live with less. In a month I start seminary which has meant that we’ve left our house, packed up our belongings and are moving into a small apartment in an expensive city. I won’t be able to earn income like I have in the past. This means that my family will have to live with more frugality than we’ve had to in a while. We’ve always tried to live simply,... Read more
There’s a popular question that’s been circulating around the internet since George Zimmerman’s acquittal that goes like this: What if George Zimmerman had offered Trayvon Martin a ride to get out of the rain? Its a warm sentiment against the tragic reality, but we must follow the nice thought with a more important question: What would have made Zimmerman the kind of person who would have offered Trayvon Martin a ride rather than shooting him? The fact is that what... Read more
I like long races–ultramarathons, half-Ironman and Ironman triathlons, hundred mile bike rides. Endurance, more than speed, is my game. As any endurance athlete knows nutrition is key to a good race. I once heard an ultramarathoner describe racing 26.2 mile plus distances as an eating contest with some running thrown in. Too much, too little, the wrong mix can cause an endurance athlete to fall short of the goal and perhaps even fail to finish the race. Its for that... Read more
What follows is a mediation sparked by the lectionary reading from Revelation 21:10,22-22:5 for this Sunday, Easter 6, Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary The dandelion has a tap root that goes three feet down, white and milky and strong–tear off the top and it will come back. It looks something like a lion’s fang and that is where the name comes from, lion-tooth in French: dent-de-lion. Some call it a weed but why would you? A dandelion in... Read more
The trees shimmer in an early evening wind that makes it difficult to see the small bird flitting to and fro, branch to branch. “There! That open twig,” I say. “I see it!” Emily exclaims, quickly taking the binoculars from me and adding blue-gray gnatcatcher to her beginners life list. This walk is a meditation. Emily and I have taken up birding, me again after a long break from the hobby that dominated my teens, her fresh–a blank life list... Read more
This Lectionary Reflection is cross-posted at the Ekklesia Project Easter 5, Year C John 13:31-35 She stood outside of the meeting room, a cigarette in hand–crying. This was a weekend spiritual retreat, a time of renewal, but for this woman it was clearly painful, even degrading. My wife approached the woman and asked what was wrong. “I’m Baptist,” she said, “and everyone is just saying such bad things about us.” The retreat was put on by the Episcopal Church and... Read more
A Sermon on John 20:19-31 In Dante’s Divine Comedy, after he’s followed Virgil through hell, after he’s climbed the seven story mountain of purgatory, watching penitents shed the remnants of each of the seven deadly sins as they climb, he arrives at the edge the garden of Eden on the top of the mountain. It’s a journey back to square one. He will go into Eden and then from there into heaven where the beautiful Beatrice will great him. There’s... Read more
“I’ll pray for you.” That can be a sentence of honest intent and care, but it can just easily be a power play, a kind of spiritual violence. I had a friend who was once struggling with faith, asking deep questions of it. Many who did not know him well, earnest evangelicals who hadn’t been gifted with such questions, would sometimes come to him and say, “I’ll pray for you.” “I’ll pray for you,” because I’ve got God figured out... Read more
I’ve been realizing that I’m a glutton. At least that’s the name for it that my Spiritual Director and I came to recently as I described how my ambitions toward discipline and self-control fall short, how I can’t let my wife buy graham crackers because some dark night I’ll eat them all. I’m a hungry person whatever it is. I am someone who wants more—more time, more books, more talent, more speed. But when the time comes, when I get... Read more
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s murder. It doesn’t seem that long ago and that is partly because it took months for the media to actually catch on to the story and call attention to the atrocity it was. In remembering Trayvon Martin’s death as I move through Lent, this season of confession and penance, I have to admit that I am a part of the reality that resulted in the murder of an innocent teen. I say... Read more
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