Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Drew Downs

  • Tempted

    This is the first thing after. A thousand things he could’ve done. Jesus is the Messiah, right? The Son of God. There’s probably a few pressing things God needs done around the place. The first thing he has to do after his baptism is to go into the wilderness to be tempted. Lent 1A  |…

  • A room full of clergy learning about changes to their pension fund is the last place I’d look for inspiration. And it’s a pretty safe guess you wouldn’t look there, either. But a funny thing happened. You don’t need to know anything more about the situation than that. It’s the sort of place which suffocates…

  • Driving home from our pancake dinner last night, having prepared the materials for our Ashes to Go and some Ash Wednesday goodies (which is in the back, please pick one up on the way out), the darkness mixed with the dripping from the sky. The cracks of thunder and streaks so sudden and arresting, any…

  • Becoming Holy

    There’s a weirdness on that mountain. If we’ve learned anything from our scripture, it might be to not go up mountains. Don’t seek those mountaintop experiences. Don’t do it. Weird stuff happens there. There: anything. Bushes burn, laws given, messiah’s transfigured, and voices come from nowhere to tell you stuff. Bright lights change our appearances…

  • I have not been as affected by a movie in years as I was by Moonlight. How it performs at the Oscars won’t change the truth that it is not only a great film, it’s transcendent. Zach Hoag’s review is top shelf and far more thoughtful than the review I never wrote. Except this one simple…

  • Seriously. Who? Because I’ve never actually met such a person. At the beginning, in the ’90s, there was a lot of trust. It was new. People were just learning to express themselves. Then there was little trust. It quickly filled with swamp and opinion. And then people started to do amazing things. Like Wikipedia and…