Regardless of what the old adage about sticks and stones tells us, we all know how much words matter, and how much they can both hurt and heal. A cruel word can stay with us for years, even decades, especially when it is repeated, perhaps by a parent or a spouse. And an encouraging word…… Continue reading A Rhetoric of Love
Category: Hope
My Grandmother’s Hands
I didn’t really plan on doing another book review so quickly, but I wanted to share just a few thoughts about this book [suggested to me by a friend], which was really interesting and different than any other book I have read recently about racism and society. Menakem focuses on our bodies, arguing that we…… Continue reading My Grandmother’s Hands
Becoming a Good-ish Person, Fighting Bias
I just finished a fantastic book, and be warned: I have the zeal of a recent convert! The book is by Dolly Chugh, and it is titled The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias. The premise of the book is quite straightforward: it is applying a “growth mentality “–a concept popularized…… Continue reading Becoming a Good-ish Person, Fighting Bias
New Life—Christ’s & Ours, Really
Make no mistake: if he rose at allIt was as His body;If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,The amino acids rekindle,The Church will fall. It was not as the flowers,Each soft spring recurrent;It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of theEleven apostles;It was as His flesh; ours.…… Continue reading New Life—Christ’s & Ours, Really
The Mother Hen on the Cross
This blog post is coming a week late, but nonetheless, I wanted to share a wonderful sermon that I heard last week. The Gospel text was from Luke, and the specific verse that was the focus for the sermon was Luke 13:34: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are…… Continue reading The Mother Hen on the Cross
“Do Whatever He Tells You”
Last week, the ELCA Seminary Leaders got together in person for a few days down in San Antonio, and it was wonderful: wonderful to be in person with these amazing colleagues for the first time; wonderful to think and dream together about the ways the ELCA Seminaries can continue to support the church for the…… Continue reading “Do Whatever He Tells You”
The Holy Innocents, Wounded Knee, and Fear
Yesterday was the Festival of the Holy Innocents, the day the Church commemorates the murder of all the boys two years old and younger in and around Bethlehem, at Herod’s order, once he realized that the magi had deceived him and Jesus–infant threat to his power–had escaped. The children are memorialized as the first Christian…… Continue reading The Holy Innocents, Wounded Knee, and Fear
Hopkins & the Incarnation
I just finished A Heart Lost in Wonder, a short, accessible biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my two favorite poets. There’s not much new here, but the author, Catherine Randall, writes a very engaging story, and goes into enough theology to make the key points clear, without too much detail for the non-specialist.…… Continue reading Hopkins & the Incarnation
Doubling-Down on Gratitude
Every year, I write a “Gratitude” editorial for the Winter issue of Dialog. This is a version of that editorial–choosing gratitude, even when gratitude doesn’t seem to me the most logical or obvious response to current circumstances. I get it. And yet….So here it is. Here we are again. Despite all optimism, despite all positive…… Continue reading Doubling-Down on Gratitude
The Promise of Something New
For some reason, I continue to think a great deal about All Saints Day, even though we are now weeks beyond it. It was probably because the list of names was long this year–was there any congregation for which that wasn’t true?–and that extended list of names, of faces, of loved ones really brought home…… Continue reading The Promise of Something New
Happy Lutheran 