A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I’ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful … First, this is a holdover from last week that I finally had a chance to listen to. Kerri Miller had one of her usual insightful conversations with a couple …
A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I’ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful … It’s been quite the week, opening with the shocking events in Sutherland Springs, Texas … moving into the off-year elections … the unveiling of the Senate Tax Plan … oh …
A weekly listing of articles, audio clips, and other tidbits I’ve encountered that seemed interesting, insightful, or otherwise useful … The big news story of the week was supposed to be the Tax Bill from the House. Clearly, it’s only a starting point and campaigns to preserve the deductions …
Summer and assembly time have passed. Rally Day, the now traditional re-launch of regular congregational activities, has come and gone. In many cases, some of the prompting for renewed focus on activities — and attendance — in the congregation has come from the downward trend lines that are dogging most …
Because Easter fell rather late this year, the commemoration of the theologian Anselm of Canterbury on April 21st falls within the first week of Easter. Maybe it’s because these events are so close this year … Maybe it’s because I spent Lent reading Walter Wangerin Jr.’s The Book of Sorrows …
The inauguration of our 45th President last month did not include a poem, which has become something of a custom at these events in recent years … at least for Democrats. Poems have only been read at five of the inaugurations, starting with JFK’s. That innovation lay dormant for decades until …
Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” in 1919, during the aftermath of World War I. American history books don’t attend to this, but “the war to end all wars” was not only a profound social-political crisis for Europe; it was a spiritual and theological one as well. …
In some traditions, there is a custom known as “St. Martin’s Advent” or Celtic Advent by which the season begins November 16th so as to be 40 days before Christmas, balancing the season of Lent, which is 40 days before Easter (not counting Sundays). It is with a view to …
There isn’t much TV that I watch consistently. In fact, I haven’t checked out any of the new shows that have debuted as this new season starts. But I am looking forward to the January-February mid-season interim when American Crime will be back for a third season. The decision to …
A few weeks ago on a Friday, on my usual morning walk, I was pondering the gospel for the coming Sunday … especially the part known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Knowing I have to watch my time in the mornings (because my commute now takes about three …