Last week I was in northern Michigan visiting an old friend who lives in Leelanau County, which is at the tip of a peninsula extending into Lake Michigan alongside Grand Traverse Bay. Its really beautiful country, and among its many charmsare miles of sandy beaches where amateur geologists search out a kind of fossilized corral known as petosky … Read the rest
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Think About These Things. Really.
Jeremiah 1:4-9
Psalm 84
Philippians 4:4-9
Matt. 9:35-38
And so, deacons and priests in waiting, the day has come. The day you dreamed of, worked hard for, maybe ran even harder from; the day you worried about and rejoiced in. In a few Spirit-filled minutes you will take vows that nobody can possibly fulfill but for the grace of our … Read the rest
Continue reading "Think About These Things. Really." »Telling the Truthiness
Did you know that “truthiness” was Merriam Webster’s “word of the year” for 2006? Various Internet sources define “truthiness” as an argument or assertion that claims to be true, without regard to evidence. Faux newscaster Stephen Colbert coined the word in the pilot episode of his political satire The Colbert Report, and the truth became—well—history.
Which leads me … Read the rest
Continue reading "Telling the Truthiness" »Wild Child, Welcome!
Grace Cathedral Choral Evensong
I bring you greetings on behalf of Bishop Marc Andrus. And together with him, I give thanks for the 100-plus year ministry of St. Dorothy’s Rest. My thanks are professional—I have the pleasure of working with Katie Evenbeck and her outstanding team—and also personal. Let me start with the latter. I … Read the rest
Ostentatio Vulnerum
The other day I was cleaning out my wallet and I found a Band-Aid. Which mostly tells you that I don’t clean out my wallet very often. It had probably been there for ten years, which is about the last time when I was in the business of regularly patching up my children’s abrasions. But finding it brought … Read the rest
Touch, Eat, Tell
Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2007 bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love, is a kind of spiritual travelogue. If you read it or watched the movie, you may recall that she recovers from a messy divorce by traveling to Italy to eat, then to India to pray, and finally to Bali to fall in love. It’s a kind of chick-lit classic, … Read the rest
The Look of Love
With fear and trembling a preacher would add any words to this passion play, which is our story of stories, and which continues to tell itself wherever love meets the lust for power and control.
So rather than adding my own words to this narrative—or adding very many of them, anyway— I want to ask you to see … Read the rest
Continue reading "The Look of Love" »Riding into Turmoil
I don’t know about you, but I really struggle to imagine how Jesus could ride into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt. It might be a first world problem: I drive a car and I don’t have much experience riding animals, so that makes it especially hard for me to envision what it would be like … Read the rest
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
“Let’s consider your age to begin with—
how old are you?’
’ I’m seven and a half exactly.’
’You needn’t say “exactually,”‘ the Queen remarked: ‘I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give YOU something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.’
’I can’t believe THAT!’ said Alice.
‘Can’t you?’ the … Read the rest
James & John Call Shotgun
When my two sons were young and we’d travel anywhere by car, they’d race to the driver’s side door calling “shotgun” at the top of their lungs. Honestly, I’m not really sure what the value of sitting in that front seat was. Because actually when they got a little older—and especially when their friends were in the car—nobody wanted to … Read the rest
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