There is another Grace Church in my life, as dear to me in many ways as this Grace is. She’s a little younger, built in 1891, a Carpenter Gothic very tiny building nestled in the center of 27 acres, 12 of which are carefully landscaped, with brick pathways that wind...
While finishing the latest edit on my chapter for the upcoming book, I went back to the one book that launched my entire exploration of contemplative prayer. Some 16 years ago, when I arrived at Columbia Seminary, I bought a book by Richard Foster: Celebration of Discipline. At that time, I dug...
Previously on Sermons: We have explored a core quality of our existence, with the realization that, in God’s vision for life, there is no “other,” that all is held and connected within God’s embrace. We have explored that it is our own sinful grasping onto illusory separateness that causes our...
Previously on Sermons: last week, we looked at the dynamic of encountering “the other,” and how, through the person of Jesus and his encounter with the ostracized, bleeding woman, we see that, in God’s own vision, there is, essentially, no “other.” We are all connected through the Spirit of Christ...
Thank you for returning for the next installment in the series of family systems sermons, based on the Royal family of Israel. Last week we talked about the almost inexplicable phenomenon of thinking about someone every day when for one or another reason we know it is unlikely we will ever see...
I want to wish a very happy Father’s Day to all of you fathers. I have nothing but praise for what you do. Especially at this time in our world as we see firsthand the great risks that many parents take in order to protect and preserve the lives of...
When Laura Masterson was here last week, offering her powerful sermon on breaking down our tendency to categorize each other, she mentioned to me that she was beginning her Summer session of Clinical Pastoral Education at a local hospital there in Austin. It made me think back to my time...
You know how when you sit down to write a sermon, you get up for a break to feed peacocks? Yeah, I thought so. My friend, Lauren, had asked me if I wanted to go to this state park that had free range peacocks. She was going to bring raisins...
Hearing the passage from the prophet Isaiah about his vision of being in the presence of God, a presence so magnificent, makes the interior of Windsor Chapel for the Royal Wedding last week look like an abandoned warehouse by comparison. This Isaiah passage is a common one used at ordinations...
I rearranged my office again. I’m editing chapters for an upcoming book, and I got writer’s block—a big case of it—so I started dragging things again. Will helped me move my desk, and I took time moving chairs and files, the rug Lisa bought me when I first moved into...