A strange confession: I love hotels. Nice, big, corporate hotels. Of course, the charm of a quirky bed and breakfast is appealing too, and you can’t beat the low-budget coziness of sleeping on a family member’s pullout couch, but there’s something about the anonymity of a large hotel that has always appealed to me. It’s […]

I’ll be out of town for most of next week at a training. I hope to continue blogging, assuming I can do so without annoying or arousing the suspicion of my roommate, a member of the church. I promise to do my best to bible-blog this week. In the meantime, everybody loiter around Songbird’s place […]

I’m heading to Presbyterian Mecca tomorrow for a few days. (Those who care, know; those who don’t know, don’t care.)
I’m meeting with a group of young pastor colleagues to talk about some of the issues that have troubled the denomination of late. Five of us are on the liberal/progressive end of things, four on the […]

read parts I and II, part III, parts IV and V, and part VI of the travelogue
Part VII: Barcelona
We had a free weekend during our stint in Geneva, so a bunch of us decided to take a Friday-night train to Barcelona. Thankfully, the Barcelona train was much nicer than the jalopy we had taken to […]

read parts I and II, part III, and parts IV and V of the travelogue
Part VI: Geneva
After two days here, two days there, Geneva is where we got to unpack and live for a while.
We took a day train from Florence to Geneva, meandering around mountain after spectacular mountain. Geneva finally announced itself in quiet […]

I’m stuck inside today—more snow on the ground, but C and I are too puny to play in it—so time for more self-indulgent mental travels:
read parts I, II and III of the travelogue
Part IV: Train
The morning before our Dachau day trip we checked out of our hotel, schlepped down to the train station, bought tickets […]

Read parts I and II
Part III: Dachau
First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak out,
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out,
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out,
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they […]

For two years running while in seminary, I took a January term that involved an extended international trip. The first Jan. term was a class at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. As a part of that trip I also visited Munich, Florence, and Barcelona. The second Jan. term was a trip to Merida, […]