When I was voiceless: How laypeople stepped in
My radiation treatment meant I'd lose my voice for six weeks, and our church couldn't afford pulpit supply. So the people decided to be my voice.
My radiation treatment meant I'd lose my voice for six weeks, and our church couldn't afford pulpit supply. So the people decided to be my voice.
Modern medicine makes it difficult to die. Often, treatment seems to prolong not living so much as dying. With no earthly hope, Regan was spared all this.
"Bonhoeffer came to embody some of the contradictions modernity imposed on the faith. I could happily spend the rest of my life sorting through this."
Decades ago, when a need arose at a church in rural Kansas, the finance chair would ask, "Who'll give 25 dollars?" Today, we have Kickstarter.
Our call is a close call, one that draws us close to the sharp edges of life. "While we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake."
People appeal to Bonhoeffer to justify a range of moral choices. They tend to ignore his emphasis on context and the need for constant discernment.
In Oslo, the freeze-thaw cycle of a warm winter made my bike commute unpleasant. Elsewhere, it's a matter of survival.
"One of the powers of debt is to isolate us. We have to overcome that isolation, and it's tricky."
I would sit between them, and every hour or so one would murmur a response to some moppet's question, and the other would smile at his garrulity.
In 1998, I drove my parents from Wisconsin to Georgia to visit the new National POW Museum. My siblings couldn't believe I'd agreed to this.