Christmas is my favorite holiday, but as I get older, I find myself increasingly aware of the complicated emotions that it inspires in so many. So on this shortest day of the year, I thought I’d reprise a piece I wrote at the same time two years ago. Grace and peace to you all, however … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Blue Christmas
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem… (Isa 40:1-2a) How long, O Lord? I ask versions of David’s question often at this time of year, the Christian season of waiting. How long until Jesus returns? How long until God fills the hungry and lifts up the lowly? How long, I ask — like … More Second Sunday in Advent
The third of the three short meditations I contributed to a Hanging of the Greens service last month. Merry Christmas to you all! It was December 1863, and America’s bloody Civil War had entered its third winter. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was grieving: two years before, his wife had died in a fire; less … More The Ringing of Bells: A Christmas Meditation
I’m not entirely sure what took me out this night, the longest of the year, to attend “A Service of Comfort, Hope, and Healing” at my father-in-law’s church in Cedar Falls, Iowa. By way of explanation, I mumbled something to my wife about Stacey and GW. It’s been months now since the deaths of those close friends, … More Blue Christmas: Comfort, Hope, and Healing
Our friend Stacey Hunter Hecht died a year ago today. I promise this won’t become an annual tradition, but this once, I thought I’d repost what I wrote about her. In the first four months of this year, three of my closest kith and kin were diagnosed with breast cancer. As we near the end of … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: On Friendship
I didn’t expect to write two posts on my first day on the job at The Anxious Bench. But while the first one was actually drafted last Thursday and Friday, Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando left me feeling like I might have something more to say. So in this afternoon’s post, I attempted to reflect on what it means … More How Can Christians Love Their LGBT Neighbors? Start by Learning Their History
In the first four months of this year, three of my closest kith and kin were diagnosed with breast cancer. As we near the end of 2015, I’m happy to report that two of them are doing very well. But yesterday afternoon, my friend Stacey Hunter Hecht lost her battle. I’m still in enough shock that I’m not … More On Friendship (For Stacey)
Each of the last three years, the members and friends of Salem Covenant Church in New Brighton, Minnesota have produced a Lenten devotional book. On Monday I shared the meditation I contributed to the 2012 devotional. On this Good Friday, it seems appropriate also to post what I wrote for the 2011 edition, which had … More The God Who Grieves
