Desk A clean desk invites fresh writing. And it can be a ritual or signal that it is the right time and place to write. Recently I visited a man who has started numerous Montessori schools. If he said to me…
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Ordinary Time VI
CBF General Assembly 2012 Top Ten Favorite Moments This year’s Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly was big. For starters it was in Texas where the hats, the egos and the Convention Center all compete for biggest and best. But beyond…
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Commencement: Baptist Seminary of Kentucky Today I was honored to join the faculty, trustees, staff and students of Baptist Seminary of Kentucky at Georgetown Baptist Church for their Eighth Commencement Ceremony. They graciously invited me to bring an address. (For seminary graduation…
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Advent II : Learning Stories of Advent
Learning Stories of Advent (2011) One of the many gifts of following the church year and circling through the life of Jesus and the life of the church every twelve months, is its orientation of newcomers into the practice of…
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Collaboration – Part I I love it when a plan comes together. And I love it when good ideas, people and organizations come together and make space for creative, beautiful and imaginative things to happen. Last evening, I spent several hours…
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Contemplaying Yes. I just made up a new word. Wrote it by accident last week. I’ve decided it’s a keeper. I was trying to write contemplating, as you might imagine, and my fingers tapped out contemplaying instead.* Lovely! Think of…
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Heroic Journey Today I ran my second long race. A half marathon. I ran my first in April of this year and wrote about it here. Since my run in April, I’ve continued to train. I was consistent except during…
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Advocacy +++++++++++++++ “One of the hardest things women in ministry have to do is advocate for themselves.” Monday. I’m sitting in on a monthly meeting of the “Heightening the Role of Women in Baptist Life.” It is a conversation hosted…
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At dinner tonight we were going around the table saying what we are thankful for. We do this every night. It often takes most of the meal time. Not always because we have so much on our lists, as that we are easily distracted. Other times the list is lengthy. Life with a talkative four-year-old.
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This week I sat down with one of my favorite pastoral theologians and got to catch up on what she’s doing with her life energy now and tell her about the work that I’m doing as well. Christie Neuger has written and edited several important books in pastoral care and counseling and also in the broader arena of the practice of ministry.
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Healing
Part II: Trees
One of this Sunday’s passages is Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21.
As one commentator summarized it: “The conclusion of Revelation has seemed to many interpreters to be a bit choppy, a barely-held-together conglomeration of leftover pieces, stumbling toward the close of the book.” I’ll say.
Earlier this week I heard a sermon which dealt with the morass of endings by focusing on one image from the text: the tree of life. Just that phrase took me like a hyperlink to one of the most healing images of my own life time . . . . the tree of life.
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