This month I enjoyed hiking with friends in the Rocky Mountains near Estes Park. As hiking “veterans,” sometimes we devise ways to entertain ourselves on the long hikes back to the trail head. For example, once we challenged each other to name movies or books beginning with every letter of the alphabet. During one hike this year, we overheard some young women talking about mathematics … Continue reading Snatches
Here in northwest Iowa we have been conducting an experiment for the past few months. A colleague and I started a dialogue group to create a space for gracious conversation about issues that affect everyone, so we mostly talk about politics. Almost everybody I know felt beat up after the presidential election of 2016. It didn’t matter whether your candidate of choice won or not. … Continue reading Succeeding at Civility
Texts: Leviticus 16: 3, 5-11, 15-16, 20-22; Matthew 27:50-51 “The Old Rugged Cross” is a hymn I sang at many bedsides while I was a nursing home chaplain. It might seem like just another dusty old hymn to teenagers, but it is a beloved classic for me and for many of you who were born long before me. The familiar refrain says, … Continue reading Atonement Reconsidered
Please come with me on a tour of the neighborhood in Sebenikoro, a suburb and poor cousin of Bamako, the capital of Mali. We will be tagging along with my friend Maly “Bibi” Sangho, director of the Ase Mali Orphanage. I arise while it is still dark to meet with her for prayer. She greets me at my bedroom door and asks me whether I … Continue reading Praying Through the Neighborhood
A child flies a kite made from discarded plastic bags. Toddlers stretch their arms toward me, their eyes begging for me to pick them up. A never-ending drum beat advertises a wedding celebration a few houses away. Scores of people gather in a neighboring house for the six-month-anniversary prayer gathering to remember the deceased, the women cooking huge pots of rice and beans over charcoal … Continue reading Flying Kites in Sebenikoro
“Be still, and know that I am God.” For many of us in ministry, this can be a challenge. There is so much to do! But if I take it to heart, if I turn from the clamor and haste for quiet moments in God’s presence, I find that I cannot do without the silent, slow pauses that restore my heart. Some years ago I … Continue reading In the Labyrinth But Not Alone
Need ideas for the lectionary (RCL) text this week? Go to “Menu” and “Lectionary Sermons” for my weekly posting. It was a fiercely cold, December Sunday afternoon when my four-year-old granddaughter Rydia spent a few hours with me, stirring batter for Christmas bread, listening to the Advent IV Bible story, hunting for objects in an “I Spy” book, playing “you can’t catch me.” We … Continue reading She Knows
“Somebody ought to do something.” How many times have you said that to yourself as you marked yet one more piece of evidence that our society is floundering? I’m just as guilty as the next person of despairing over circumstances, then pushing my anxiety aside, filing it into an overstuffed file of “things I can’t do anything to change.” Except this time we’re not pushing … Continue reading Knock, Knock. Who’s There?
Need ideas for the lectionary text this week? Go to “Menu” and “Lectionary Sermons” for my weekly posting. In Jesus’ conception, there is one virgin being prepared. In a haunting parable (Matt 25.1-13) about the end times, there are ten virgins, five of whom are properly prepared. In the manner of armchair lectionary critics, I might have placed the parable in Advent. But there … Continue reading Advent Oil
It feels very arrogant of me to offer tips on talking with others who typically annoy or frustrate you. How do I know what it’s like to talk with your sister-in-law who treats you like the dirt on her shoe? I’ve never sat next to your father when he is pontificating, with food in his mouth no less. True. But I have picked up a … Continue reading How a Lab Coat Can Get You Through Thanksgiving, and Other Tips
saint sinner seeker 