“Speak only kind words, each word a gift.” — Ephesians 4:29, The Message version The site that hosts this blog tells me that this is number 200. Thank you, all of you who read these — you amaze amaze me…

“Say only what helps, each word a gift.” — Ephesians 4:29, The Message version You and I have no trouble understanding those words. No trouble understanding what they mean. But something gets lost in the translation from understanding to doing.…

Joseph and I were having what he called a Guys Only Night cooking our favorite Son and Dad Dinner. While our spaghetti was cooking, we talked about adding a spice to the bubbling pan. We opened the cabinet with all…

Something wrong with this coffee. My spoon was poised over the steaming water I’d just poured into a favorite mug. It looked like nothing more than a mug of steaming water. On the kitchen counter by the mug was the…

“Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out.” — Hebrews 10:24 (The Message version) They’re all around us. Some are military veterans.  I’m thankful for their service to our country. Some protested various wars.  I’m…

“Beware when politicians sound like preachers and preachers start sounding like politicians,”  began an editorial in The Christian Century magazine two issues ago. As a pastor who preaches and teaches as many as 9 times a week, that caught my attention…

“We know that we have passed from death to life” —1st John 3:14  This is the last in a short series of things we can know. We’ve been working our way from the end of this brief New Testament book…

“We know that we belong to the truth” — 1st John 3:19 Great promise here! But let’s put it in its orginal context. That verse starts and ends like this: “This then is how we know that we belong to the…

Post-Election Day  by Walter Brueggemann — Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), p. 149. You creator God who has ordered us in families and communities, in clans and tribes, in states and nations. You creator God who enacts your governance…

#1. VOTE.