A lot has happened since Moses was rescued from the Nile. He has grown up, killed a man, fled for his life, married a Midianite woman, and become a shepherd. All that in a few short passages of scripture. Funny how quickly our life can be summed up. There are other ways of summing up […]
Jesus tells Peter that whatever he binds on earth is bound in heaven and whatever he looses on earth is loosed in heaven. That’s a responsibility we all share in—this binding and loosing. Sure, the pandemic seems to have bound us in some particular ways but if we are letting our fear around the pandemic […]
We are all looking for salvation though most of us define salvation in vastly different ways. We might think of it as acceptance or judgment, a release from suffering or an easy life. Whatever our basic understanding of salvation is, it determines what motivates our behaviors and influences our decision making. If we think of […]
Recently I heard a story about a whale. Researchers in the ‘80s had been working with sonar in the Pacific Ocean to try and identify submarine activity. They would often hear whales calling out to one another. Whales travel in pods and help locate one another even when they are miles apart by emitting underwater […]
The act of Esau giving up his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup is ridiculous, impulsive, and just plain stupid. No one would give up their birthright, their inheritance, for a bowl of soup no matter how hungry they might be. It doesn’t make sense and is not something any sane person I know […]
The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies. It is filled with swash-buckling adventure, an evil prince, a beautiful princess, and her daring rescuer—”the man in black”. Its not the adventure or the thrill of the chase or even the daring rescue of the princess that makes me love The Princess Bride, it […]
Fear is a powerful, motivating force. Fear has been used as a tactic for getting people to do things—we might threaten a child with a whippin’ as a form of motivation. Tyrants use it to force those around them to do their bidding. Bullies threaten on the playground in order to feel powerful. We are […]
Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. Sometimes I wonder if Paul might not be a little Pollyannish in his reasoning. I want to cling to this soliloquy but do I really believe it? How much suffering can be endured and does that really produce character? Its […]
It was supposed to be a joyous occasion. One in which we celebrate Eucharist—revival style—out on the front lawn with the bishop and Confirmation and a bar-b-que dinner. We should have had pretty table cloths and flowers and a blue grass band. We should have had face painting and bouncy houses and families camped out across the grounds […]
There are events and people in history that we consider great. There’s the Great Depression, Alexander the Great, The Greatest Generation, The Great Wall of China, The Great Gatsby—maybe not so much that last one—but you get the gist. We associate particular events, people, even places with the word “great” because they mean something more […]