Walls can do great things. Walls hold in the heat during winter and hold up the roof that keeps out the rain. Sometimes people put up walls to keep others away! Signs on those walls might read: “Keep out”, “Private”, “No Trespassing”, or “Members Only.” How do you feel when someone tells you to […]
Tag Archives: christianity
I grew up in a different theological zip code than Belmont, as my childhood church served up occasional samples of hell-fire, with a dose of fear, and a pinch of guilt. We never canceled Wednesday children’s choir for Halloween. Instead, we hosted alternate fall festivals, carefully never saying “Halloween.” While dating Connie some 30 years […]
Imagine, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ faces the cross: the complex, entrenched, religiously motivated cumulative hatred of all humanity in one symbol act. Will he fight, flee, or make a new pathway through love? The weight of a sinful world presses down upon him. Who is with Jesus in the garden? Will […]
My friend, John, is a rocket scientist; yes, literally a rocket scientist. John has degrees in Aeronautical Engineering and is a distinguished professor the University of Tennessee Space Institute In Tullahoma, TN. John told a version of this story to a group of high school seniors. John was working with NASA on a multi-year review […]
A few weeks ago, we took our family plus two on vacation to New York City. While there we visited several churches, even paying $42 for the six of us to tour a certain anonymous grand cathedral. While admiring the impressive grandeur of the sanctuary, I zeroed in on a stone fresco depicting Christ’s Easter […]
Over 30 years ago, I left my childhood denomination and joined the Methodist church. When people asked me, “Why did you become a Methodist?, I usually answered with one word: “Grace.” In seminary, when I read about Wesley’s idea of “being made perfect in love”, I wrote “this is idiotic. perhaps blasphemous” in the margins […]
Eleven year old Emily headed out with her mother to share “Take Your Daughter to Work Day.” She met judges, assistants, and clerks who worked with her mom and especially enjoyed helping the security guards scan courthouse visitors. She went to some meetings but had to sit out others, so she walked around the […]
When we moved to Tennessee, a friend said, “you must go to a UT football game- it’s like a religious experience!” We tailgated and did the Vol walk, the band leading us in. It was fun. Now I grew up in Kentucky, and Big Blue Nation wears a lot of blue, you just notice the […]
This week Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, spoke “to our church friends” reminding the nation of Paul’s injunction to “obey the government.” Sessions did not keep on reading in Romans 13, where he might have heard Paul call us “to pay taxes” or to the deepest moral law to “love our neighbors as ourselves”. Now, how […]
Sent on a Spiritual Journey into the World! Back before cell phones, wifi, or even cable TV, we got bored every summer. We invited fun. playing home-run derby with a wiffle-ball or riding our bikes over a little ramp through the sprinkler like Evel Knievel. One day, we were all down at Joey’s when […]
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