It’s harder to love people than it is to hate them. Hate seems to be our default emotion. We go there when we are faced with something or someone unfamiliar. But, as we get to know that something or someone, we’re willing to set aside our initial hate (which is a direct result of fear) [...]
Lessons I Learned in Laredo
I was living with my parents in Laredo, Texaas when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot in Memphis. We were fans of Dr. King and the whole Civil Rights Movement. I had an uncle who was a United Methodist pastor and marched with Dr. King. We were proud of him, but his [...]
Space: The Final Frontier (if you don’t count your relationship with God)
I was 11 years old when I got the call to the ordained ministry. I used to call this “when I decided to become a minister,” but that’s not PC anymore. Of course, it was a call. It was just disguised as me deciding to become a minister. And, this call, when I am forced [...]
Forgiveness – Finally, Conclusions
Well, the two book groups in my church reading Unconditional? wound up this week. The author, Brian Zahnd (you’d think I was getting some sort of kick-back from book sales) has managed to deepen the challenge to practice radical forgiveness in every single chapter. The final two chapters are no exception. Chapter 9 is Beauty [...]
Forgiveness – Part the Third
The book groups at my church (one in person, one on facebook) are almost finished with Unconditional? The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness by Brian Zahnd. It is a biblically-based, meticulously-argued challenge to forgive. This is not “forgive and forget.” Amnesia is not the answer. He is saying that when we forgive someone for [...]
The Fourth of July – Boom!
My wife and I were watching the NYC fireworks on TV. It was pretty amazing. Lots of fireworks, some of them huge and very high. And, of course, there was music ranging all over the map. And, they held the commercials until the end. So, all in all, a phenomenal experience. But, about half-way through [...]
Forgiveness, Part the Second
I mentioned in the last post that Jesus forgave the people who were murdering him while they were in the act of murdering him. This is a role model for us all, but one could argue that Jesus is a different cat. Christian theology tells us that Jesus is fully human AND fully divine. Not [...]
Forgiveness, Part the First
Our church is having two book studies on one book. On Monday nights, we gather on the church’s facebook page and chat about the book (I feel so hip). On Tuesday nights, more of us meet around a table at church to discuss the book. The name of the book is Unconditional? The Call of [...]
And the Holy Spirit Came Down in a Church Meeting, of All Places
I am very cynical about Annual Conference meetings. Maybe it’s because I’ve now been to 32 consecutive Conferences. Maybe it’s because much of it is self-congratulatory presentations. Maybe because much of the rest of it consists of pretty boring reports. Maybe it’s because we spend hours and hours considering Resolutions (things like “visioning an AIDS-free [...]
Sacred Spaces
Every year, Virginia United Methodists gather for the aptly named Annual Conference. Because there are well over 3,000 delegates, we can no longer meet in a church, as was the case decades ago. In fact, we can meet only in buildings that also house major concerts, hockey games and basketball games, among other things. This [...]
