Christianity
Bleakness and Beauty
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago. On December 27th, we went to the the graves of my late husband and my grandparents. It would have been my grandmother’s 111th [...]
Visionary Subversiveness
Thursday, December 16th, 2010These days I’m reading a lot of the Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann. His writing is prose infused with poetic (and prophetic) outbursts that, depending on, cause the reader to sit up, gasp, cackle, or pause in stunned silence at the implications of his speech. I like him. So I share a few words from [...]
What’s Up with Ascension?
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010Reader Question: Advent, as you note in your defining of the term, comes from the Latin “to arrive”. We as Christians anticipate the second arrival, or as we commonly say, second “coming”, of Christ while celebrating Christ’s first arrival. In Christ’s first arrival, God offered Her only Son to die for the sake of all [...]
Being Taken on an Adventure
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010adventure (n.) early 13c., auenture ”that which happens by chance, fortune, luck,” from O.Fr. aventure (11c.) “chance, accident, occurrence, event, happening,” from L. adventura (res) ”(a thing) about to happen,” from adventurus, future participle of advenire ”to come to, reach, arrive at,” from ad- ”to” (see ad-) + venire ”to come” (see venue). Meaning developed through “risk/danger” (a trial of one’s chances) and “perilous undertaking” (early 14c.) and thence to [...]
Stewarding Presence Even When God Seems Absent
Monday, November 22nd, 2010I was so pleased to have been asked recently to prepare a presentation for the Stephen’s Ministers of my congregation, and I decided to make the gathered group into guinea pigs. For some time, I’ve been mulling the experience of pain, grief, and suffering as it is experienced in the Church. I wanted to use [...]
The Relevance of Relevance
Monday, November 8th, 2010I remain unable to let go of the irritation I feel at myself that I did not think of the name of this strange venture of mine, namely OMG: Center for Theological Conversation. That spark of creativity and wit came from the fine folks at Insight Marketing, who, after listening to me babble about what [...]
Sacred pissiness
Monday, September 27th, 2010I just finished reading a review of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. You can find the link here. If you’re wondering why you’ve heard of Barbara Ehrenreich before, your memory is tingling because she wrote the notable book Nickle and Dimed. This latest book was born [...]
Anne Rice not a Church-goer … then she is … now she’s not …. What’s up?
Monday, September 13th, 2010In light of Anne Rice’s recent announcement that she is leaving Christianity but holding onto Christ I am pondering the following:
What does it mean to react to vs respond to the Gospel, to God, to Christ, to Christianity?
What are the parallels, if any, between Anne Rice and the stance taken by Martin Luther centuries ago?
What does it mean to ‘leave’ a doctrine?
Lutherans and grace
Friday, September 10th, 2010I try to believe that grace is a fundamental teaching of the Lutheran faith. I have trouble with that at times. Any ideas?
Hunches, hopes, hints about grace
Thursday, July 29th, 2010Question: If we are saved by God’s grace and yet we continue to turn our back on God, i.e., we don’t practice our faith, we don’t pray, we don’t read God’s word, we continue to repeat the same sins over and over, etc. if we die are we saved or did we fall short of [...]
