A few months ago, I was filling the bird feeder with some beautiful shiny black sunflower seeds, when I remembered a weedy bare spot behind our back fence. I grabbed a trowel from the shed and dug eight Frisbee sized plots. Rabbits mowed down many shoots, but four sunflowers persevered growing tall. Everyday, an 18 […]
Author Archives: paulrpurdue
Our Jewish kinfolks placed Ruth within a grouping called “The Writings”, along with books like Ester, Jonah, and Job. The Christian editors placed Ruth in the history section between Judges and 1 Samuel. Friends, Ruth is more of a play than a history. Ruth begins with a kind of “once upon a time”, “during the […]
Camp Compassion is our online VBS, where we are learning that compassion means: “I see your hurt, I feel your hurt with you, and I’ll work to ease your hurt.” This week we chatted about how compassion helps us be brave. I was turning that phrase over in my head,“compassion helps us be brave” , […]
I do not know when my mother gave me this doll, but I am pretty sure, I was the only boy on my lily white block with a Black Power doll. I wish y’all could have known my mother. Joann Sims Purdue taught in the most economically challenged school in our town. She was hired […]
I lived at home while going to the University of Kentucky and worked at the YWCA Afterschool program. Every weekday, I parallel parked a 15 passenger van in two school zones, played Whiffle ball, soccer, went swimming, double dutched, went to the library, and helped with homework. It was a great job! As a […]
It had been raining for two weeks, and the forecast called for thunderstorms. Everybody wanted to get a game in. I am unsure of the benefits of organized league sports for four and five year olds, but I signed up to coach. Lily, with her big purple hair bows that matched our jersey, was set […]
Today is Trinity Sunday, where we consider: God in three persons. All week, I considered leaving this lectionary theme to address the newscycle. However, perhaps our understanding of God might guide our living with each other. If God exists in relationship what does that mean for our relationships with each other? Years ago, an elementary […]
I watched the C-span video of President Trump standing in front of the boarded up “church of the presidents.” He was holding someone’s Bible. For a minute, he seems to be trying to figure out the best way to hold it aloft- clasping and shifting his grip. We pastors usually hold it up with two […]
Jesus grieved and grew angry at the church’s hardness of heart. (Mark 3). Compassion signals the presence of Christ. Jesus calls us to love others as ourselves- even strangers and opponents. Hard hearts allow us to regulate, isolate, and direct our love to people like us. The Incarnation shatters these boundaries by entering human suffering. […]
Things looked bleak in the Thirty Second chapter of Jerimiah. Babylon had laid siege to Jerusalem. Famine, fire, and disease engulfed Jerusalem. King Zedeikiah imprisoned Jeremiah for telling the truth. Inside prison, the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah prompting the prophet to purchase a field. Jeremiah ensured the parchment contract would endure by […]
