[NOTE: This is the fourth in a series. We’ve been thinking together about some excerpts and highlights from a piece written by Stephanie Paulsell. If you missed parts 1 through 3, scroll down and treat yourself.] “Advent calls us to prepare a way within us and in the world around us to receive the Christ-child,”…

[NOTE: This is part 3 of me dealing with my excerpts and highlights from a piece written by Stephanie Paulsell. If you missed parts 1 and 2, scroll down and treat yourself to her stuff.] Let your conversation be always full of grace, says Colossians 4:6. What will the conversation around your table be like on…

[This is the second part of a series in which I’d like to deal with some excerpts and highlights from a piece written by Stephanie Paulsell. If you missed part 1 yesterday, scroll down to catch up.] “We are called to wake up but also to watch,” she reminds us. We’re how many days away…

“Advent arrives bearing its radical promise,” writes Stephanie Paulsell. “The prayers and hymns and readings of this season remind me that we’re not just waiting for a president to assemble a government,” this Harvard Divinity School faculty member continues. “We’re waiting for the eternal to break into time. We’re waiting for Christ to be born…

Merciful God, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now…

Merciful God, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now…

  At a church Board of Trustees meeting, they were talking about the boiler. I know about as much about boilers in church buildings as I do about the inner workings of the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs boson particle. I was trying to keep quiet. But at least I was paying attention and generally…

Merciful God, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now…

Anybody else wish our Bibles had an emoji here and there? According to the BBC, Emojis have been available on Japanese phones since the late 1990s but gained worldwide popularity after 2011, when iPhones started coming with emoji keyboards. They are now widely available on Android phones too. They differ from emoticons by being coded…

A dialogue to which I can add nothing. It’s from Season Three of the secular, non-pious show Scandal: “There is someone worth saving.” “Who?” “Everyone.”