Blog - Mercy & Grace

So in my last blog, I revealed my first tattoo.

I woke up to a rare bad dream the other night.

“For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” Romans 3:28
“Be still, then, and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10.
Sunday, October 29 is Reformation Sunday, a High Feast Day of sorts in the Lutheran Tradition.

Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

I didn’t get a Good Friday blog done yesterday.

Eucharisteó

A paradox: something that is the opposite of what you’d expect to be true, even though it’s quite true, and maybe all the more true because of the contradiction held in the tension of competing truths.

I fell in love with the Minnesota Twins, and therefore fell in love with baseball, at the exact same time that I first fell in love at all.

I got myself into a bit of a pickle the other day, and the reason for it (as is the case with most of my pickles [I tend to generate a lot]) started innocuously.

Sometimes, let’s just admit it, English isn’t quite as deft as one might like.

“Now that you know that death doesn’t win, there’s more to do with your life than preserve it.”

Here’s the two-fold gist of this Ash Wednesday/Gearing-Up-For-Lent blog:

This past Sunday, November 19th, I had the pleasure of preaching at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais, MN.

For what may or may not be the umpteenth time, E and I were belting out Hamilton on our way to her confirmation class this morning.

Take in this poem by Maria Melendez Kelson.

I have a new Jøtul F 118 Black Bear Stove.

This morning, I found myself trolling some earlier blogs I wrote about Advent and Christmas, trying to remember what thoughts I have had about them in the past (I have lots of thoughts, but can hold on to only one or two at a time).

I know Christmas is around the corner (even my family is starting to bust out the Christmas decorations), but Advent does yet have dibs on our attention for a short spell.

“And Lincoln says to the woman, ‘Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?’”

“…our thoughts and prayers are not enough.  It’s not enough.”