a prophetic voice-

It's a bright- if muggy- Sunday here in the Piedmont of North Carolina, and after a lovely worship service at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, I am sitting in my favorite chair, catching up on emails and snail mail correspondence (yes, I am one of those Luddites who still enjoys writing letters and sending cards), while trying to restore my sense of equilibrium and well-being. You see, I've been reading the new book by Madeleine Albright, Fascism- A Warning, and I must confess to feeling anything but stabilized right now. Albright is both an intelligent writer and a good historian, presenting the reader with a history of Fascism and the Fascist leaders in our century who turned the world on its head. Fascinating, I must say. But the very destabilizing part for me is the ways in which I am seeing reflected our own day and time, both here in the United States and worldwide. You see, I have never, ever been an alarmist... have never subscribed to conspiracy theories...never been a fe...

Some days... Some days, I'm not sure      who i am...           or      why I'm here           or      what my task is for today. Some days, I struggle to      find my place...           and      live my truth...            and      do the heart-filled deed. Some days, I long for      clarity of mind          and      peace of heart          and      strength of purpose. Some days...     but just for this day,     this one holy day, I rest, confident that answers will come...      and so, I open myself to      this moment, this amazing,      life-filled moment,           And BREATHE....

(I wrote this last week for an assignment in my writing group. It's about today.) If no pain, then no love. If no darkness, no light.   If no risk, then no reward. It’s all or nothing.   In this damn world, it’s all or nothing. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. ~Desmond Tutu       The ringing telephone shattered the midnight silence. An almost-strange voice, choked with emotion, filled my ears with even stranger words- “This is Jamie, Shannon’s brother. I am so sorry…Carl was diving with Dan in a zenote in the Yucatan…he drowned. I am so very sorry…” the rest of the words lost in the roaring in my head, the dreadful tearing sound of my heart breaking, the harsh rasping of my sobs as tears streamed down my cheeks…as I sought for and grabbed at sanity in a world suddenly gone mad.       There was more conversation, I know…some details about official things- the a...

just live! Moral certainties make my hair stand on end, especially when expounded by those who seem to thrive on drawing battle lines and boundaries… whose goal seems separation and one-upmanship instead of reconciliation and compromise. Absolutes invite hypocrisy, as we have often seen among the “famous” of our day, as revelation of another’s feet of clay is met by judgment, anger, and buoyed by a sense of superiority by those whose own humanity has yet to be revealed. Life, my friend, is messy and confusion- a nd far too short to make it about “either-or”, “for-against”, “us or them”… no “one size fits all” garment covers every situation…no simple set of rules applies- unless it is the “rule” of love. For life’s complexity demands our openness… our acceptance of people different from ourselves…our unwillingness to change our minds and hearts when living proves us wrong…       ...

In August of 2003, I wrote a Pastor's Column for a local newspaper, a column about fear and the power of love. In going through some of my writing this weekend, I can upon it and, especially in light of the powerfully beautiful sermon by Bishop Michael Curry at the Royal Wedding, I share it with you now, aware of its timelessness and timeliness.      We have become a nation of fear-filled people. Never before can I  remember so many people being afraid of so many things- and I was born during World War II and have lived through Korea, the Cuban Missile crisis, and Vietnam. Never before do I recall watching businesses spring up in  response to the fears we have- things like gated communities and home alarm  systems and car alarms and complicated product packaging systems. Never  before have I watched the evening news with the awareness that playing upon  our fears seems to be the basis for so much of what we are being tol...

“it is a puzzlement” We seek easy answers... quick solutions… always in a cultural, collective hurry to find “the way”, whether to     lose weight or     guard the borders or     defeat terrorism or     prevent teen pregnancy or     cure breast cancer or     raise children or      be the Church… When will we realize, do you suppose, that, each of us- each and every one of us- is part of the solution? Not the whole- for no one person’s wisdom is that complete- but part… each of us bringing our own small but necessary piece to contribute to the complex puzzle that is life together. right & wrong Why do we so fear being wrong? Why do we so need to be right? Is it because we operate from the shaky premise that acknowledging another’s rightness means accepting our own wrongness- seeing life in terms of right & wrong instead of     ...

All religion boils down, I think, to two beliefs:     there is some ultimate significance     in the universe             AND     there is some way of being connected to it. That "ultimate significance" we call by many names, for no one name can capture all the essence or explain the unexplainable... no word or set of words, no description will suffice... but each of us settles on that one word which resonates within the soul...     and most often I choose "God" though     "Spirit", "Breath", and "Source of Love"     tumble from my lips at times, while     at others there is no name at all-                                   only silence. As for connection, we must each find our own connecting place, the place to hang our hat of faith, or, in desperation, grasp a hand to pull us...