essays
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The Love that Dares Not Be Declaimed
It is not inexplicable. Look up that word. It does not define what it happening. This was recently posted about Republican leaders who can’t tell us the truth about racism in America. It is a mystery. It is inexplicable. It is unfathomable. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/conservatives-dont-know-why-charleston-happened But it is completely explicable. It is completely understandable. You just have to be a white American to not understand it, and you have to not want to understand it, because–and you know this–there is no penalty for refusing to see and to understand. We are unable as white people to confront our own racism. We cannot handle the idea that a body of people like us…
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How Do I Fight White Racism Myself?
I have friends who ask me “But what can I do as a white person to fight racism?” I will answer with a story and then a question. First, the story. I’m raised and discipled as a Christian, so my stories come from the life of Jesus. Seems there was this time that a rich young ruler came to Jesus to ask him how he (the rich guy) could be saved. Jesus asked him if he knew the laws and kept them, and of course the guy said “I’ve kept them from my youth.” You know, a righteous guy, and a really good candidate for conversion, and a definite plus…
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Image of God, Image of Man
I want a God who is small and careful and deliberate. Who sees the secret places and comes into them. Who sees the unchecked injustices of the world and comes to set them right, one broken life at a time. Who is loving and careful, patient and kind, faithful and truthful and giving. I want a God who can rescue the people I love and care for but who have no advocate of their own. I want a God who will walk beside them and bear them up, offering them hope and support and love, giving them all his attention and compassion. I want a God who is wise and…
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Broken Windows
When we have a broken window in our home, the first thing we do as responsible homeowners is to fix it. Later we might line up our kids to ask “Who did this?” Maybe we assign blame or figure out a way for the culprits to pay back what they cannot afford. But first, we fix the broken window, because leaving it broken leads to far greater damages. It’s like that with the controversial topic of reparations. It’s come up recently due to the fine work of historians and writers. Perhaps you’ve heard this discussion. Reparations is a word that incites near-immediate response, usually along the lines of “I had…
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The Closing of the American Heart
Recently there has been a move in America for Christians to demand the right to avoid serving people with whom they disagree theologically. The claim is made that by baking a cake, arranging flowers, or being a photographer at a wedding for a couple who is marrying outside the Christian tradition, the Christian is breaking his religion. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at such an attitude. First—the Christian is providing a service. A Christian electrical company cannot withhold providing electricity to those with whom they disagree theologically. Likewise a Christian police officer cannot refuse to help someone with whom they disagree. A Christian doctor, teacher, entrepreneur, shoe-shiner,…
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These Things I Believe
Every so often people question my Christian faith. Here’s what I believe: I believe in God, the Father almighty,creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,born of the Virgin Mary,suffered under Pontius Pilate,was crucified, died, and was buried;he descended to the dead.On the third day he rose again;he ascended into heaven,he is seated at the right hand of the Father,and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit,the holy Christian church,the communion of saints,the forgiveness of sins,the resurrection of the body,and the life everlasting. Amen. This creed was the…
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About Trayvon and George
To my friends and family on Facebook who keep posting stuff to me on how George Zimmerman was innocent, Trayvon Martin was a thug, and that you also cannot understand why Black people are so upset over the loss of life of some kid in Florida. You’re not listening. You’re not listening to the people across the nation who have had this experience, multiple times, in their lives and the lives of their families and friends. You’re not listening to the mothers and fathers who do not know, day to day, whether their kids leaving for school in the morning will make it back home without harm. You’re not listening…
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Paula Deen and the Unfortunate Change in Acceptable Words
Yes, we swim in a sea of racism. Yes, we pick it up. Yes, we even continue it. But we are human adults with minds and (I believe) the ability to choose different behaviors when instructed and led based upon what are (to my mind) better values. When someone raised me as a kid to be “good,” it meant being kind and honest and giving and caring. I don’t know if I already was “good,” and that was just instructions on how to do it, or whether I really wasn’t “good,” and the practice I did to follow the external rules molded my character. In either case, I turned out…
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At One Time
Today Monty talked about a difficult term, “Atonement,” and brought out several ideas about what this means. I think most of us don’t think too much about this idea, and when we do, it’s with the vague sense that we’re swimming in rivers too cold and too deep for our water wings. I’m not going to try to re-explain what Monty said, as you can go listen to him online. It’s really quite excellent. What I do want to raise is the question of “Now that we know what it means, what do we do about it?” Or, more accurately, what am I going to do about it? I can…
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Cookie Cutter
We step into a river, we believers, when we first decide to follow Jesus. The river is the great flow of believers from all nations and all times, a river that started thousands of years ago and that continues today, with a vast congregation of people called by God and living in his name. We step into the river and there are so many who already are swimming, confident, powerful, assured of their journey, and it can be intimidating. So what we do is we copy what they’re doing. “Fake it ’til you make it” is a good motto, and it works. Along the way, though, sometimes we forget the…
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Arms and the Man
If a foreign nation invaded America and as a result, 20 people every day were killed, at random, and no place was safe in America from violence–you could be dragged out and killed in your school, your home, your church, your mall, your car, in the park or on the street or at the movies or standing in line waiting for a burger–we would be at a near-riot condition, demanding our national defense do something to protect us from this daily violence which kills our mothers, our children, our wives, our brothers, our friends, our leaders, our pastors, our politicians, our police officers, our fathers, our sons, and us.Instead–we shrug…
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Awash in a Sea of Tears
Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthian Believers, Chapter 10, lines 3-6 “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (ESV) “The truth is that, although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not those of human…
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A Poem for Advent
America 2012 Twenty children were shot Charlotte Bacon, 6and six adults in one of Daniel Barden, 7the greatest tragedies Olivia Engel, 6in American history. Josephine Gay, 7Unfortunately, it was Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6not the greatest tragedy, Dylan Hockley, 6for we have had mass Madeleine F. Hsu, 6shootings in Columbine Catherine V. Hubbard, 6and Virginia Tech and Chase Kowalski, 7Aurora and Portland and… Jesse Lewis, 6The list goes on and on, James Mattioli, 6and while we are sometimes Grace McDonnell, 7speechless and sometimes Emilie Parker, 6saddened, it is never enough Jack Pinto, 6to move us to take action. Noah Pozner, 6We think we are powerless Caroline Previdi, 6against guns,…
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Words and Actions
Indeed I tremble for my country when i reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep for ever
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Losing My Religion Pt 1
People lie. Societies crumble. Businesses fail. Political parties speak one thing but pursue an opposite agenda. These are our gods, and they are proved not to be so much lies as they are simply untrustworthy—literally not worthy of our trust. Not worthy of us.
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The Communion of the Saints
What kind of people participate in the communion of the saints?
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People of the Book
It’s odd how most of us only know what’s between page 1, far behind us, and page yet-to-be-determined, perhaps only a little ways before us, where our present life concludes and the book closes with a final snap.
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Beauty and Ashes
I do not know if you can admit you’ve lived through that time, where beauty has changed to ashes. Often there is no safe place to have that discussion because life demands that you act as if life holds only beauty. There are chores and tasks to take care of. There are family members to support. Life goes on like a train, and there is never a cord to pull to say “Stop!” Whether you speak out or not—life goes on.
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Sunday Words, Monday Deeds
I suspect that some of you are in the same boat with me. Thinking, “Lord, are you really calling me?” Because the awful reality is dawning that he is asking us to follow—to really follow – him.
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
There is a great clip on YouTube, where Bob Newhart is a therapist who attempts to help a lady with a problem. For whatever reason, she can’t stop thinking certain negative thoughts, and that bothers her. Bob’s advice is classic, accurate, but powerless: he tells her to just “stop it.” As if knowing something is the key to doing something. Maybe that works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. I mean, the being-told-what-to-do part. Most of us who are adults cannot be made to do anything we really don’t want to do. We usually do what we’ve always done, and try to skate by on a good explanation.…
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Model Garage
We will always need that sense of being connected and that sense of knowing that someone sees us, recognizes us, and finds us valuable.
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Acts of Faith
Have you ever walked into a movie halfway and then spent the rest of the movie trying to figure out what it all means? It makes for a challenging viewing experience—you don’t really know the characters, and you have to guess why people do what they do
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Losing Faith
Have you ever done all the right things, checked all the boxes, filled out all the forms, signed on the dotted line—and still experienced disaster?
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Telling
Maybe it’s that we’re human, but we can all tell our story. Not all of us can tell it with the same degree of passion or generate the same level of interest, but we can usually describe an event and what it meant to us.
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Sometimes the Good Guys Win
How come I can want to do the right thing and be, inside myself, a good person, but both the outside and the inside are broken? How can the universe display such beauty and at the same time such brutality?
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Surfing the Avalanche
This week think about the ways you are avoiding help and change. Maybe you think you can do it alone, or maybe you think you must. I can't convince you outright, I think, to step out. If you're convinced of your own hopelessness, then what are my words going to do to change that? But if there's the slightest hint of light, the weakest desire for change, I urge you to find a group who will love you unconditionally and support you without shame.
