Dear Emergent Guy,
I had the opportunity to hear you speak the other day on “Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.” Let me first thank you for being direct, honest and prophetic, which many of us sorely need. In my experience of the conference up to that point, it seemed clear that many of us mainline folk […]

“He’s very dour, very grim, very Presbyterian.”
HEY!

Hosted Emergent Clergypal at our home yesterday—he did a presentation last night on “The Church as Art” for our Lent series. Basically put forth some new images for the church—church as God’s art, God’s commissioned artists, and curators of God’s art. It was outstanding. I left buzzing over the overlap between words from the art […]

But I just can’t help it.
Hat tip to Real Live Preacher.

So we have this emphasis during Lent on the creative and liturgical arts, and our foundation scripture is the anointing of Jesus in which he says, “She has done a beautiful thing for me.” The idea being that we are all called to do “a beautiful thing” for God, regardless of our particular gifts or […]

through a welsh drawl we are told:
a cathedral
is both a protest and a proclamation.
a gymnasium for the imagination.
frozen music.
a place of clarity, not certainty.
an egg, a nest, a house, a country, a universe.
all i know is, last night
i thought it an ark:
bleached planks, cross pieces,
it locked us inside itself—
no, i mean to say
it swallowed us whole.
over […]

the “wise elder” from wales
pauses between words,
within them, even,
rolling the syllables,
tasting them like grapes;
she strolls to the easel,
a single word: ponder.
(latin, pondus: to weigh.)
in the afternoon, buses growl uphill,
sleet raps, tick tick, on the glass,
and evening lectures are cancelled.
inside it is so still
i forget to breathe
anditcomesinarush.
The retreat is about recovering the religious imagination, about “finding […]

What a relief, and a rare thing, to have my sermon “done” on Friday night.
From a series we’re doing at Suburban Pres. entitled “The Once and Future Church,” inspired by the Loren Mead book of the same name. (Many thanks to this article for providing the structure for the sermon.)
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
For just as the […]

1) Do you observe Advent in your church?
Yes. Advent wreath, advent dinner, advent hymns–although by Advent 3 we’re holding people off with a whip and a chair, so a few carols creep in.
2) How about at home?
We light the candles on the advent wreath
3) Do you have a favorite Advent text or hymn?
Oh, I’m full […]

Remember last week when I asked “why have I been spared” the illnesses? I know the world doesn’t work that way, but what was I thinking putting that in writing? [Cough, sniff]
The divine miss m is also sick–still, or again? R thinks it’s again–she appears to have what I have, which is not the same […]

Book discussion today at the presbytery office—Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church. Many good questions raised; few answers:
BBT’s path of faith and her desire to be authentically herself ultimately led her out of the church and pastoral ministry. Must it be that way? Can this kind of questing and questioning (including a bald admission of great […]

Nursing relationship, that is.
The divine miss m has been on strike for 24+ hours. I’ve offered at various times today but she twists and shrieks in a way that says, “I am So Over You.”
I know this is common at this age, although for some it’s just a phase. So we could easily wean and […]

This morning I was walking on the treadmill while checking in with my boys via Tivo.
I’m no fan of Barry Manilow, but he was on the Colbert Report on Monday, and he and Stephen sang a duet. During Stephen’s bit I noticed that the treadmill had slowed way down. I looked down at the cardio […]

Today’s tidbit from Brian McLaren, in a discussion on the kingdom of God: We need to be careful in our interpretation of the book of Revelation, specifically the visions of the apocalypse. This is a man whose power was in gentleness, who said “blessed are the peacemakers.” It’s as if peace didn’t work the first […]

First, a brief update
You might remember my frustration with the Crankypants Monthly e-newsletter. I had offered some feedback to the editor that the contributors were pretty darn old and pretty darn male, with few exceptions. They’re all lovely people, but still.
After having a conversation about writing book reviews occasionally, then being told a few months […]

Here’s how the day began:
Woke up at 5:30. R got up soon afterward to get showered before the girls woke up. I fed M at 6:15 and put her back down. The cab picked me up at 6:30. I took the Metro to the airport and checked in with R around 8:00. He said, “You’re […]

Studio 60
I hear that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is dropping off a bit in viewers, which makes me sad, because I think it’s engaging and smart. And in contrast to those who think it’s too self-important (”it’s a TV show about a TV show, get over itself”), I would say that the tension […]

First Friday of May, 2006 –
I receive my electronic copy of the Crankypants News Monthly, which contains articles written by members of the presbytery. The articles are written by two women and three men, all middle aged or older and white. One article is written by a retired minister, entitled “If I were twenty years […]

My last post sparked some interesting comments (see previous post and comments) about entertaining… got me thinking about the differences between entertaining and hospitality.
Songbird’s stay-at-home theory (that rates of entertaining have gone down as two-career homes have become more prevalent) is interesting, and there’s probably something to it. It’s an irony though, in that I […]