History
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Gathered by the Spirit
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5 min read
Finding and reclaiming our common purpose in Terre Haute a Homily for a special evensong | Text: 1 Peter 2:1-9 [Last night St. Stephen’s gathered for evensong with our neighbors from St. George’s in West Terre Haute. It was a wonderful gathering of mutual celebration and commitment that marks a big anniversary for the Episcopal Church’s…
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Just Cut the Church Programs
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5 min read
For several weeks I’ve been writing about engaging different groups in church. Then I wrote about dealing with time constraints and what it means for planning. Now, I am making a personal appeal for an entirely different approach: it is time to get rid of our programs. As Phyllis Tickle adeptly outlines in The Great…
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Bad Science, Infant Cereal, and Church Tradition
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3 min read
In her post, “Why Ditch The Infant Cereals?” KristenM at Food Renegade makes a compelling case for not giving cereal to babies before they are one year-old. The case is made of two important arguments: 1) What is developmentally and biologically appropriate and 2) There is no “traditional” basis for it. Against these two arguments,…
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Halloween, All Saints’, & too much candy
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4 min read
A web-friend was recently asked about Halloween and what he thinks about it as a Christian. His response, as expected, was thorough, honest, and appropriate. Mine, is well…perhaps a little less so. I don’t really dig on Halloween & Church. Not because I think it is demonic or sinful or whatever. And it is not…
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Forward living or backward obsessing?
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4 min read
My brain is intent on proving me wrong. More than a decade ago, when my two closest friends were living in East Lansing, I moved down to join them. Having only visited the apartment once or twice, and not knowing the area very well, I was confident that I knew the way to get there;…
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A shocking lack of historical knowledge
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5 min read
We all know the paraphrase, if not the real quote by George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it.” And we seem to believe it. Sort of. Considering the ease with which we warn each other that such a leader as our own is the second coming of Hitler, it…