“…a soul on the cusp of the earth.” Kirianne Weaver* Theologian and Pastor, Kirianne Weaver uses this phrase in a short but powerful reflection she wrote describing an event in her life. I warn you it is a bit stark and perhaps should have one of those alerts they give on television to make the viewer aware of the content that follows.While in college Kirianne had stayed up until about 3:00 a.m. talking with her roommate, then decided to journal for a bit…
Several years ago—a lot longer than I want to admit--one of my favorite authors, Phillip Yancy, jolted my thinking about Holy Week, and Holy Saturday in particular. He wrote: Two days, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, are perhaps the most significant days on the Entire Church calendar, and yet, in a real sense, we live our lives on Saturday, the day in between. Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. It’s Saturday on planet Earth, will Sunday ever come?…
It's the eve of the New Year, 2022! The celebrations held toward the end of the year - Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, or Winter Solstice are giving way to a new year. New years are generally times of promise and new beginnings. Very often, people make new year's promises to themselves and others,known as "resolutions" - to start off the new year in a better way, or with great intentions to live life in a better and more productive or fruitful way.All around the…
I continue to be impressed at the lengths that people will go to save money on purchasing the gifts during the Christmas season. Black friday is a perfect example. Frankly, I haven’t ever been in the black friday rush—I don’t even know, with the month-long extended internet blitz, whether people go to the lengths they used to with the brick and mortar stores. They used to camp out in lines, sometimes for an entire night, just to secure the closest spot to the door. Others would wake incredibly early. Come morning, the mad rush began as people run to get to the big deals.
Early in my ministry—in fact, during my internship year—one of my responsibilities was calling on the “shut-ins” of our congregation who found it difficult to get out of their homes because of age, medical condition or other incapacities. I was very nervous and unsure of myself during the early days of this pastoral responsibility. I wanted to offer comfort to these parishioners but was uncomfortable about the whole process of such visitation. On this particular day I was feeling very inadequate and apprehensive…
Years ago, a fellow whom I visited in a VA hospital told me this story. He, (we’ll call him “Bruce”), was at the gym observing a power lifter, (we’ll call him “James”), who was bench-pressing more than 350 pounds. For those who are wondering what bench-pressing is, it’s a form of exercise where the lifter lies on a bench, under a rack that holds a bar that has a series of weights added to it and lifts the weight with his arms enough…
Come gather’ round wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown, accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. And if your breath to you is worth saving then you better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times, they are a changin’. Bob Dylan In 1963 Bob Dylan wrote these opening lines to a song which reflected the events which surrounded those of us who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. To…
…add to your goodness, knowledge; to your knowledge, add self-control;to your self-control, add endurance; to your endurance, add godliness; toyour godliness, add kindness and to your kindness add love…”2 peter 1:5Kindness is a gift that means a lot to people. When someone does a kind thing for us, we usually feel touched and grateful. Yet signs of kindness are often small acts of thoughtfulness rather than major sacrifices or long-term commitments. People who develop the gift of kindness in their lives find that…
Some of you may remember Ed Sullivan (this dates me and others who do). He hosted a weekly TV variety show in the 50s and 60s. He also did live shows for charities. Once he asked Jimmy Durante, a well-known entertainer of that era, to join him at a veteran’s hospital to entertain some of the disabled vets there. Durante told him he would like to help, but had two radio shows that day and those bookings were a substantial part of his…
As the gallery of parents watched eagerly, the students running the five hundred-meter (550 yard) race swept into view. The gazelles were in front, the children who always won, powerful legs churning. Then came the main group of students, bunched together. They tried to keep up with the person next to them, or even hoped to pass the one in front of them…while dreading being passed by the one behind them. About fifty meters behind them came a boy, face flushed, arms pumping,…
“Laughter doeth good like a medicine.” Prov. 17:22There is a creation story in the lore of the Apache nation which tells about how the Creator delighted in making the first humans able to do so many things. They could see, hear, talk, run, dance, and create things with their hands. But the Creator was not fully satisfied. Something seemed to be lacking in these wonderful new beings. And so, the Creator went back to the creation mount and experimented with the different possibilities.…
I have an old chamois skin which I use when I wash my car. This chamois and I have been together for forty years, at least. The truth of the matter is that it is getting pretty ragged and worn out. Something about that is upsetting for me--perhaps I want it to be the same—like it was when it was new.New cars are somewhat the same way. I really like the smell of the interior of a new car. When I buy a…
“A silent mind is all you need.” Eastern MeditationHappiness starts with how we look at ourselves. Feelings are our happiness gauge. How we handle the wide range of our emotional life depends on how we accept and appreciation ourselves and our “body feelings.” Feelings such as fear, anxiety, insecurity, as well as good feelings of pleasure, acceptance, or satisfaction can be the barometers of our being.It is not easy for us to look deeply into ourselves, to try to understand why we react…
How can I escape your Spirit? Or flee your Presence? If I ascend to the heavens, You are there: if I make my bed with the dead, behold, You are there, too! If I fly on the morning’s wings, and find the ends of the sea, You will guide me and your right hand will cradle me. If I were to say, “if only the darkness could cover me, and the light about me could be like the night.”—even the darkness would not…
Do you remember the day that you learned to ride a bicycle? Maybe it was not just one day, but several. Do you remember who it was that helped you to learn? For some of us, this means taking a trip down memory lane. It also might mean a recollection of spills, bruises, and tears. After all, it is the learning part that can bring the pain. Once you learn, it is just fine-tuning after that. In fact, after you gain a little…
This story was shared with me several years ago. On November 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at the Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage was no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child and has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one…
We have heard a lot about “conspiracy” lately. What comes to you mind when we talk about it? Often we think about “cover-ups”, scandalous dealings”, “treachery” or some other skullduggerous mayhem, most often by groups who have less than honorable intentions or purposes. Think about them: Watergate; 9/11; the moon landing; Prince Diana’s death; JFK’s assassination; Area 51;—even Paul McCartney’s death—do you remember playing that Beatles record backwards and looking for all the signs and symbols on their albums? We are confronted with…
Several years ago, at the beginning of the internet, the following story was shared with me —so I am not sure where it came from, and am not able to confirm its veracity. Regardless…ponder these words:It was the late 1880’s. A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the elevator into the outer office of the president of Harvard University. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had…
During my college career I sang with a variety of choral groups. During my senior year I had the opportunity to sing with a small group of 16 men. I recall one short piece which included the words “…and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” These hopeful words came from the writings of the 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, who evidently was the first woman to write a book in English, a book she rewrote twenty…
“My Soul Magnifies the Lord”“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid; For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed; Because He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name!” Luke 1:46“But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19It is Christmas Day. My family, as we have for years, gathered last night within our “pod” with…
“Wha-at a-are yo-ou WAITING for? Christmas?” It’s a question I used to harangue batters with as a baseball catcher in college--especially when a batter was excessively finicky at which pitch he wanted to swing. The question is probably asked a million times—thrown at the direction of the driver ahead of us who is more intent on the cell phone than on the green traffic light—in wonderment of how much greener the light needs to be before said motorist finally looks up from the…
I can remember as a young pastor thumbing through my grandmother Emilie Bee’s old church hymnal while serving a small congregation in Grafton, Illinois. I remember the congregation well because we had to cross the Mississippi into Illinois by way of a barge/ferry. As I perused her hymnal, I came across a piece of music that has become one of my favorite Thanksgiving poems. I like it, first, because it is so simple, and second, because it is so specific. It doesn’t simply…
It’s November—the warmth of mid-fall weather is gone—replaced by cooler, almost winter-like weather. Gray clouds cover up blue skies and the last of the yellow, golden, and red leaves fall as it rains, leaving the tree branches bare. It’s sort of a depressing time of the year, don’t you think? We can sort of look forward to later in the month when Thanksgiving Day will come. The seasonal changes remind me of the changing rhythms of life—often warm and bright and then at…
As small children my two daughters were blessed with a toy—you’ve seen it, I’m sure. It was composed of two parts: A plastic box with a dozen or so holes of different shapes and a collection of plastic pieces sharped to fit the holes in the box. That toy presented my daughters with endless hours of discovery as they worked through the problem finding properly shaped piece to fit each hole. The very process of going from hole to hole was pure play…
They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength… Isaiah 40:31 It had been a hectic afternoon of running errands, complicated by the fact that we were doing the running in a new place that we hadn’t been familiar with for nearly 15 years. Meridian and Boise had grown and expanded and we’d just moved back to town. It was past dinnertime when we parked at our final stop—the Co-op. My stomach was growling, and my attitude was not in much better…
It’s been 19 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center (September 11, 2001) and 40 years since Mount St. Helens erupted (May 18, 1980). Pictured are two vials of ash—one from each event, along with a missing person flyer given to me by the family of Tonyell McDay, who perished in the explosion of World Trade Tower 1. My life and career came close to both disasters. I was preaching at Our Savior’s Lutheran in Sunnyside, WA that day in May 1980…
A friend of mine, a Lutheran pastor, author, and story- teller, Walter Wangerin, tells the story of his youngest daughter, a child of a mixed-race marriage, whom Walt adopted. It’s actually the story of her “story.” It is scary and wonderful all at the same time, and as an adopted person myself, I thought it would be wonderful to share it. Oh, and btw, her name is Talitha. Walt writes: “Once when Talitha and I were walking to church early one Sunday morning,…
The other day, I came out to my car while on a road trip to see family, and found that my battery was totally dead—not one light except the dim vanity light on passenger sun shield—not one “bing, bong” from any warning system—absolutely dead. I thought, “Well, that’s OK, I have a set of jumper cables in the trunk and I can use my cousin’s car to jump my battery.” Ah, the plans of mice and humanity. The access to the trunk was…
How, but in custom and ceremony, are innocence and beauty born? WB. Yeats Yeats reflects on the workings of ceremony and custom that give birth to beauty and how they restore a sense of wonder to our daily rounds. Most of us are far too jaded for our own good…we have seen it all…there are not surprises for us anymore…which is precisely our problem. We only think we have seen it all! What we haven’t begun to see is the abundance that surrounds…
There is an ancient Buddhist story that tells of a woman—a mother—whose child died. The mother carried her deceased daughter from place to place begging for help—as if she could still bring her back to life. The mother was turned away time after time, as each person she asked could see that there was no bringing the child back to life. Finally, someone told her that if she went to the Buddha, perhaps he could help.So the mother traveled to the Buddha and…
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