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My daughter Else and I have settled in these last several nights to read Bridge to Terabithia.

Question:
I was brought up being told that God is everywhere, and all powerful, that those who seek shall find, and that it is quite possible to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, while fearing no evil.

In my dining room hangs a framed and matted lithograph by William Benson, a now-retired art professor at the University of Wisconsin (Eau Claire).

So if I’m going to make the case that faith has relevance, I might as well throw myself into the Wisconsin fray, which has an awful lot in common with the Ohio fray, and is symptomatic of lots of frays both present and impending.

In seminary, I was introduced to this piece by Valerie Saiving Goldstein, a groundbreaking essay entitled The Human Situation: A Feminine View, written in 1960.

My daughter is afflicted with a genetic disorder.

Today is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birthday.

Two days ago I learned that my friend Ellie committed suicide.

This Saturday, we are taking a couple to the South Dakota symphony.

Dear all,

Next Monday we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Monday morning I had a fortunate exchange with a friend of mine.  When we run into each other, which happily occurs a lot, we immediately move beyond the weather and get into the grit of life.

In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,

“Let’s write words in the snow, Elsegirl,” I told my seven-year old daughter, after she had pulled me out to play in the 9° Sioux Falls nippiness yesterday afternoon.

These days I’m reading a lot of the Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann.

Reader Question:

I have always been struck that Mary, the mother of Jesus, after learning that she was pregnant with the one whom many would later call to be the Messiah, somehow found time to “ponder these things in her heart.”

adventure (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 “a novel or exciting incident” (1560s). The -d- was restored 15c.-16c. Venture is a 15c. variant. As a verb, c.1300, “to risk the loss of;” early 14c. “to take a chance.”

I 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.

I 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.