Dan – Page 515 – Apprentice 2 Jesus

There are days…and there are days. One particular battle we face in the city where I pastor is racism. It is so prevalent, and most of the citizens (who are white) do not even recognize it. It is breaking my heart. Then, I get a letter from someone in my congregation (anonymously) that they areContinue reading

What kind of life do you live? Is it a dangerous one? I don’t mean a life of crime or internet scams, or something like that. I mean dangerous in terms of giving up yourself and throwing yourself into the vastness of the Kingdom of God? As I am finishing up Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain,Continue reading

I have not done justice to this blog. I have not done justice to the name I put on this blog. It has been too random. It has been disconnected. It has been too much about my own random thoughts and too little about being apprenticed to Jesus. I want to invite you to aContinue reading

Thoughts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Ethics: “The American democracy is not founded upon the emancipated man but, quite on the contrary, upon the kingdom of God and the limitation of all earthly powers by the sovereignty of God.” We must take care to recognize that building something to “last” cannot happen. We may want democracyContinue reading

I was writing a paper on St. Antony, one of the Desert Fathers who lived in 3rd Century Egypt. The aspect I was studying in his life was demonology. The Desert Fathers knew they had to do battle in the desert. They knew there was a real devil and real demons. Antony taught that thoseContinue reading

There are those times I try and try and try NOT to make some political statement, but then… I just CAN NOT RESIST! For all the wringing of hands we have over the gas prices, a picture from Yahoo News tells it all. It happens to be Republican Dennis Hastert, but it could have beenContinue reading

Andy Crouch does a marvelous job cutting through the seriousness of our “culture war.” An article he has in Christianity Today cuts to the chase. Jesus was not shy about confronting the issues of the culture. However, he tended to be harder on the religious structure than the existing political and cultural structures. And hereContinue reading

In our search for the real Jesus in this season of celebration (commonly called “Easter”), we have the force-fed story about the “Gospel of Judas”, which is not really news at all. Along with that comes the long-running battle over who “owns Jesus” in politics. It is tiring. I have had people tell me youContinue reading

A class I am taking on the Desert Fathers has the opportunity to enrich my soul again. My soul is parched. Abba Moses had some things to say about fasting I thought were powerful: “The old man was asked, ‘What is the good of the fasts and watchings which a man imposes on himself?’ andContinue reading

Baseball season is upon us. Opening day is not far away. The Final Four in college basketball comes this weekend. No top seeds made it this year. Who in the world is George Mason? An 11th seed makes it to the Final Four? What a treat. Baseball still has the cloud of steroids. Barry BondsContinue reading