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I’m having a good Christmas!
I walk into Starbucks. Set my bag on a chair and remove the lid from my refillable cup and set it on a tall table to save my spot. Then get in line. There, I fumble with my phone to bring up my membership app. I want to be ready to pay for my iced…
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And Darkness Did Not Overcome It
In the beginning was the Word When we read these words on Christmas morning, they feel like a counter to the words we hear the evening before. We gather on Christmas Eve and hear the birth story from Luke, with its familiar moments of a baby born, swaddled, and laid down for bed in a…
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The Song of the Flesh
This Advent several of us gathered Sunday evenings to eat together, to talk, to explore the birth stories of Jesus, and to pray. We marked this season by focusing on the story of our savior rather than the clutter and noise of the world. It’s a fitting reminder that Jesus is born into a noisy…
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The Dumpster Fire
THE DUMPSTER FIRE I’m losing track of the horrors The assassination The truck Fireworks in Mexico. So much pain and I’m forgetting it every day there’s more like Professor X my mind is overloaded with voices, everyone’s thoughts and the villains want me so incapacitated I can’t resist. Won’t. Overwhelmed and afraid, the only turn…
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Birth of a Rebellion – How the Nativity is a Subversive Story
If you didn’t grow up in the church, you’d never know how subversive Jesus’s birth story really is. Hell, if you did grow up in the church, there’s a good chance you don’t know how subversive the birth story is. Every aspect, every piece, is a story of subversion and rebellion. From the birth itself…
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Echoes of Fear and Salvation
Three thousand years ago, an unremarkable boy grew into a remarkable king. He was a shepherd and musician, smaller than his brothers. And yet this boy took down Goliath, survived persecution from the first King of Judah, and he became the great king to unite the divided kingdoms. Two hundred years later, they’re divided again and it’s…
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The Thing About Christmas
The thing about Christmas is we can’t force joy. No matter how much eggnog and spiced lattes we drink, cookies we decorate, presents we receive. Joy isn’t forced upon us. We don’t wake up with Christmas Spirit because the calendar pages turn. Joy just happens. This is what separates joy from happiness. As The Oatmeal…
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Balanced
BALANCED There is no balance between rich and poor, slave and free. No necessary condition of have and have not. Victims don’t need to forgive their abusers before justice reins in the terror. Our lives are out of balance. If our ecosystem was balanced, it was before we burned fossil fuels. Before we salted our…
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