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The powerful presence of God
I am working through Merton’s autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain. In college he was gaining more of an awareness of God through his study of literature. At the end of one summer, he wrote this: “By the time summer was over, I was to become conscious of the fact that the only way to live was to live in a world that…
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Does Jesus know you showed up?
Luke 8 has the story of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. It’s a great story of “pressing in” (literally) to Jesus. The question that comes to my heart today is this: “Are you so passionate about prayer that Jesus knows you just showed up?” All the people pressing in, Jesus knew something happened when the woman touched him.…
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On a day like today, you HAVE to mention the weather
And our dog is just fine with it.
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Thinking about thoughtfulness
For all of my love for things tactile, like real books and real pens, I’ve lost touch in this fast paced culture. I still get Christmas cards from people… and haven’t sent one out myself for years. Well, Christmas is past, but I want to start something up again in my life: I want to jot a note… an actual…
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Refusing the ADHD of our culture
We are entirely too distracted in our world. We have too many things coming at us and it makes it incredibly difficult to… SQUIRREL!!! See what I mean? I just can’t seem… to… focus… While we certainly take into account how we are made (as to biological realities), another thing we need to emphasize all over again is this: we have abilities TO…
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The training of pastors
Pope Francis made some very pointed remarks about the need to train new priests. Some of his comments are so needed in our training of pastors in protestant circles as well: “Formation (of future priests) is a work of art, not a police action. We must form their hearts. Otherwise we are creating little monsters. And then these little monsters…
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Merton and Seven Storey Mountain
My goal for reading this year is to read slllllooooowwwwweeeerr… and repeat some books. Repeating books: check. Slower: ummmm. The one book I have read multiple times… okay… a second book I have read multiple times is Seven Storey Mountain, the autobiography of Thomas Merton. This is my first read of the year. This book is very easy for me to read every…
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Anchored in the Creation Story
This week I will begin a sermon series tentatively called “Anchor in God.” It has morphed into several forms, but all of them begin in Genesis. At this point, it may only be a series out of Genesis to take us to Lent. The more I teach the Old Testament as an adjunct the more I am deeply aware of…
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Remember the poor
Paul writing in Galatians brings verification of his preaching by retelling the story of his visit to the apostles. The big issue, of course, was the gospel coming to the Gentiles, but the one piece of common theological ground they had to have from Paul was this: They asked only that we would remember the poor, which was certainly something…
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Living in Jubilee
I am reading prayerfully through the Gospel of Luke and today found me in Chapter 7. It has been a chapter I’ve slowly worked through in prayer the last couple of days, and I imagine I may be here a little longer. It is a wonderful place to start a New Year. As I reflect on life and ministry, the…
