ambition

Jesus models a lot of things, but ambition seems not to be one. There will be ambition in any organization and of course the church adds fuel to the fire by accommodating ambition with titles, ranks and clothing. But ambition, it seems to me, is infested vocation. Vocation is something...

something new

The death of patriarchy in our society and our church has begun, though slowly. White men will no longer be in charge. Women will begin to take over and systems which have prevailed for centuries will topple. Men’s insecurities will no longer motivate what happens on our planet and perhaps...

Sabbath and self-worship

This is an image from Prague. I took the photo walking from my home, into the city the day I was hit by a train. I remember, now, how hard I was working to see Prague - how hard I was working to see every museum, every park, every...

envy

Someone recently asked me what one word I would use to sum up America. Before I could self-edit, I blurted out a word which made the group of a dozen people in a lavish living room go dead silent as if i had just taken off my clothes or...

ritual, ceremony and a bad dream

Today I heard Richard Rohr say that the difference between ritual and ceremony is that ritual lets in the darkness. It felt so true that for a few beats I could not breathe. He said that in ceremony there is praise and thanksgiving but there is no darkness allowed, no...

exchanging our speeches for silence

It takes great courage to be gentle. And it takes especially great courage to be gentle with our selves. We hold tightly onto the things we have chosen to believe. We think things and then we choose, for whatever reason, to believe the things we think. Its insanity and we...