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For a variety of reasons, Christian faith in America tends to be a private and personal thing. Faith is what we believe, and that can be safely tucked away in our brain somewhere. In the faith understanding I grew up with, you can be a faithful Christian if you go to church on Sunday and abide by societal norms for morality. So, in essence, if people don't check the church par
It happened again today. I drove up to one of my favorite cafes in a nearby town and was shocked to find it closed. I don’t mean closed today. I mean closed forever. But they knew me there! They knew I liked those vanilla creamers and my eggs poached hard! I sat with the engine running, hungry and caffeine-deprived, wondering where I would go for breakfast. Why didn’t they warn me? I would have come by to say good-bye.
I went to the hospital the other day. For some reason, I like to have a prayer book with me when I go to the hospital, even though I rarely use it. It's not that I don't pray; I always pray. I just don't use the prayer book. But, it's sort of a security blanket for me. I got used to bringing it long ago, when I was in seminary.
I always wanted to be a mother. But becoming a mother was not an easy road for me. Although I was healthy and young, it took a good three years to get pregnant with my first son. After months and months of testing, praying and wasted pregnancy tests, I had to ask myself, how bad do I want to be a mother? How many dollars am I willing to spend? How much am I willing to put my body through?
Although only the most daring (read stupid) among us preachers will take on the task, one has the opportunity to preach the scandal-of-the-particular-versus-universalist controversy this Sunday. I say daring (stupid) because it will invariably get you in hot water, but you could, the texts are there, the opportunity is available, but the nuance is tough.
Near the top of my list of biblical thanksgivings is St.Mark’s gospel account. I’m a firm believer in the importance of a 1x4 gospel, so I will admit that the other three are necessary to tell the whole good news of Jesus Christ. But Mark is definitely my favorite.
Anthony Robinson said it well in a recent Stillspeaking devotional. Maybe the future of the church is a lot simpler than it is today. Breaking bread, prayers, learning about the word and caring for the lost are the simple acts Jesus led his little band to engage in.
This is a question that would have seemed weird to me not too long ago. However, now I see it as one loaded with (potential) theological significance. I have been told since my teenage years about the virtues of daily Bible reading. To encourage this habit, I have also been encouraged to do this reading/reflection at the same time and in the same place to help reinforce the habit.
It’s the second movement of Leonard Bernstein’s choral work, Chichester Psalms. A boy soprano (or a countertenor), in the “role” of the shepherd boy, David, sings in Hebrew the opening verses of Psalm 23. He is accompanied–sparingly, fittingly–by the harp. The first several measures are tender but not tentative; filled with sentiment, but without sentimentality (this per Bernstein’s instructions). When the women’s voices take over the text at גַּם כִּי־אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת . . . (Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .) there’s an ethereal echo-canon effect. This part of the movement, when executed well, is something sublime.
One thing I have noticed as a Protestant whose tradition observes the 40 days Lent: we don't seem to be very good at observing the 50 days of the Easter season. Yes, we pull out all the stops in worship on Easter Sunday, but then we seem to immediately go back to business as usual.
