Posts Tagged ‘reflections
A CHAMELEON FROM THE START
Prayer For a Caring Community
Bumped
A PRAYER FOR CARING COMMUNITY
(adapted from the Ten Commandments)
Save your people, God who is our God:
From not loving you as we should;
From the worship of the gods of material wealth and comfort;
Litany for Mothers’ Day
Eternal God, on this day we lift up all mothers to you. Scripture has prepared us to recognize that by your grace, mothering takes many forms.
We lift up those . . .
… who have experienced joy and fulfillment in mothering
… who have known the pain of a child’s death
… who are facing motherhood again, or for the first time
… for whom childlessness represents a loss
Continue reading ‘Litany for Mothers’ Day’
“Heterosexual with Issues”
I am stealing this link, unabashedly, from my good friend Daniel at Soulforce.org, who brought this to our attention. Of course, his post title, “Amen Brother – Rudnick on Haggard”, was just too much of a double entendre and too funny to copy. This piece is subtle at times, at others bordering on hilariously vulgar, but at all times funny and thought provoking. Thank you Daniel.
Just to whet your appetite, some excerpts:
“I became determined to change, to lead a wholly Christian life. In college, I began to date. At first, I took things slow, and I went out with only the most pious, virginal girls, who luckily often had strong, masculine jawlines.”
“But I knew that what Brad and I were doing was wrong, especially after the fifty-eighth time. That was when I told Brad, quite firmly, ‘Brad, our being together is sinful and will only impede our development as responsible Christian adults. And your mustache tickles.’ ”
“So, yes, I was flawed, but my commitment to my parishioners, my wife, and my family remained my primary focus, until finally I was caught on tape, attempting to buy crystal meth, sexual services, and a plus-size tube top from a male prostitute.” Continue reading ‘“Heterosexual with Issues”’
Resurrection – Pain & Joy
Ah! Easter Sunday! Christ has risen. Alleluia.
I always imagine the early morning Easter sun breaking through the darkness of the night. I picture the angels Mary saw dressed in white. There she was, standing in a garden filled with the color and the smell of Easter lilies, hyacinths, and azaleas. Okay! So it’s not exactly accurate, but it is, for me, a brilliant and dazzling scene – a scene that inspires me and brings hope.
There are substantial differences in the four Gospel versions of the resurrection story. Much has been made of these differences – perhaps more than has been made of the other differences that exist in scripture. There are enough differences that, while each depicts a brilliant and dazzling scene, it is tough to know which, if any, may be historically accurate. Continue reading ‘Resurrection – Pain & Joy’
A Parable based on Gen 19:1-15
Two gay men and two lesbian women came to Sodom in the evening as Rev Lot was communing with some local folk downtown. When Rev Lot saw them, she rose to meet them and extended her hands, because she saw, in the faces of these people, the image of God – the very tired and rejected faces of Christ. Continue reading ‘A Parable based on Gen 19:1-15’
The Nature of Prayer
What do I consider to be the nature of prayer? I’ve been asked many questions about prayer and people’s prayer lives, but this one caused me to really think about my answer. As it turns out, I’ve written twenty page essays on less involved topics, but will do my best to address the high spots of my thoughts.
Prayer, for me at least, fits into three categories: personal, communal and liturgical. Admittedly the last two are not neatly separated, but in my definition communal prayer is that which occurs between two or more people outside of a formal service or liturgy.
Personal prayer varies considerably but generally fits under an umbrella of “conversation with God”. Continue reading ‘The Nature of Prayer’
Christology – Borg vs Wright
If I can be allowed a brief introduction, I have a comment about the perceived theological location of each of the authors. During 2003/2004, while attending Westminster College, Cambridge, I heard three out of four lectures given by N.T. Wright about “New Perspectives on Paul”. More interesting than the lectures was the diatribe from the various seminaries regarding Wright. The Evangelical Anglicans, conservative as opposed to traditional (self-description), denounced him as “apostasy on two legs”, while the Anglican Catholic half of the Church of England considered him a defender, albeit somewhat radical, of traditional theology in the current age. The United Reformed Church (Westminster), a mixture of very traditional (reformed) to very conservative, generally considered him to be a liberal Catholic. (All that being said, the lecture hall was packed to the rafters.) Overall, the book we’re now reading was described in Cambridge seminaries as a conversation between liberal (Wright) and very liberal (Borg). The book’s cover, claiming representation from liberal and conservative camps, seems to be heavily dependent on one’s point of view. Very few conservatives in Wright’s home country view him as anything but liberal. Still, overall it appears that both authors fit somewhere in the less-than-extreme centrist majority of the imaginary liberal-conservative spectrum and, as such, posit stands most Christians should be able to get their heads around.
Rev Andy Little
MINISTRY FROM TWO POLES 
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