(Part of my series Letters to Dead People) Dear Rich, It was twenty years ago today that you left this world for our Father’s house. A car accident of all things (is that what you get for wanting to “go out like Elijah”?). I didn’t know at that time, nor would I have cared. In…
Dear Vincent
(Part of my series Letters to Dead People) Dear Vincent, I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. It’s not surprising, really, since you’re my favorite painter. Your works are on four walls in my apartment (hopefully more soon). I have several books of your paintings and sketches. I have a small figurine of you…
I Am Scout
A good friend and I were talking recently about Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee’s book set twenty years after the events of To Kill A Mockingbird. Written two years before its celebrated prequel and yet published over fifty years afterward, the questionable circumstances of its publication has immersed Watchman in controversy, but perhaps not…
But Am I?
I had a job interview a couple of days ago. As the potential job involved a Christian website, I was asked about my theology during the interview. Based on my academic background and my church affiliation, the interviewer asked if I was Baptist, which I affirmed. However, after the discussion, the question kept popping into…
Advent 4: The Reconciler
In the story of redemption, the grievance is from one direction and the reconciliation from the other.
Advent 3: Joy?
It’s easy to get depressed when circumstances don’t go as we plan. Happiness in wavering, though. What we must rest on is joy.
Advent 2: Peace
Year A Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10 | Psalm 72:1-19 | Romans 15:1-13 | Matthew 3:1-12 So, this post is a day late. That’s somehow fitting for an Advent post. I mean, the prophets and Jesus himself spoke of his second coming as a seemingly close event, but we’ve been waiting almost two thousand years. And while time beats…
Advent 1: Prepare
It feels unbelievable sometimes, yet it is a promise given to us. There will be a day when the nations of the world will not make war. The disunity of humanity will end, and the Lord will come to establish his Kingdom. But what do we do until that day of peace?
The Lent Trap
Lent. Otherwise known quite often in my mind as six weeks without soda–or something like that. Oh, it starts off well enough. The first few days I’m really into it. I go to my church’s early morning Ash Wednesday service. I’m reading the scriptures, prayers, and devotions of the season. I’m challenged by fasting from…
Politics, Compassion, and Understanding
The political season is once again upon us and, unfortunately, it’s unavoidable. Our internet feeds and news programs inundate us with the latest poison rhetoric from the candidates–the loudest ones, at least. We finally reach November and are so sick of the whole mess of it that we vote for the “lesser of two evils”…
