there are some nights when the sky turns the color of friendship and fades into the crisp darkness of gratitude we ate with friends drank and talked as well and then walked away dropping bit of hope like breadcrumbs along the sidewalks and silent porches finding our way home to
If you haven’t heard, Rob Bell has written a book . I haven’t read it, but he apparently has a lot of nerve claiming God loves everyone. What I have read are any number of blog posts, articles, and straight out rants claiming that Bell’s argument that Hell
One of the signatures of my life are pockets of unfinished things. I have shelves of unfinished books, stacks of papers to be gone through, any number of unfinished household projects, and – thanks to an attempt, at least, to finish unpacking one corner of the guest room in our house
First the news of Lazarus dying before Jesus had time to get there -- Then the image of Jesus crying must have giv’n the disciples a scare . . . He got to the tomb and called out his friend, with the others saying, “He stinketh” – they had no idea death was no
I spent the morning and early afternoon at the Third Annual Jack Crum Conference on Prophetic Ministry at Avent Ferry United Methodist Church in Raleigh. My primary connection to the event was through my friendship with Ryan Rowe, who is a member of the church and the organizer of this
it is a dark and stormy night the sky is angry flashing and bellowing yet refusing to dissolve into tears and weep its way into ushering in the dawn our middle schnauzer runs under the bed at the first sound of thunder I’m typing in the dark to better
In the opening lines of Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas sings every time I look at you I don’t understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand you’d have managed better if you’d had a plan why’d you choose such backward time
as I write, Ella, our Schnauzer is stretched out on the bed barking at the sound of our neighbor rolling his big trash cans out to the curb she cannot see him, only hear the rumble of the plastic wheels and she is convinced her sound makes a difference even
The Fifth of April is an unusual first day of school, but today was just that for my students and me as we began our new chapter and sat down together for our first class in our new building. In each of my three English classes, we were also beginning
allergies are never mentioned in any of the gospel stories no one called out to Jesus to ask for sinus relief even in the desert’s dust with my head as stuffed as a dorm dirty clothes bag and aware of the gathering pollen storm I understand the question – who
John 9 tells the story of a man born blind whom Jesus healed by spreading mud on his face and telling him to and wash. Though Jesus is clear that the man was not the cause of his blindness, I was struck by the unwillingness of others to see him
Tomorrow, April 3, marks the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech to the Memphis sanitation workers in 1968 -- his last speech before he was assassinated. After spending the morning talking with some church friends about what it means to be a peacemaker, I offer his words tonight,