A Brief History of Reading Part I (mine, not everyone else’s) Although it is tempting tonight to try and be clever about today’s failed prediction of the rapture, I’ll resist. Most of my friends on fb – and the rest of…
Read MoreEaster III
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…
Read MoreEpiphany XVIII
Legacies of Southern Seminary Friday, March 4, about 35 people gathered in Louisville, Kentucky only two miles from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) to think about the legacies of the school.* We met at Highland Baptist Church, one of…
Read MoreAnatomy of a Schism
Order on Amazon Anatomy of a Schism: How Clergywomen’s Narratives Reinterpret the Fracturing of the Southern Baptist Convention (April 2016, University of Tennessee Press) by Eileen R. Campbell-Reed New! Anatomy of a Schism is now available on Kindle. Academic reviews…
Read MoreEpiphany XII
Hospitality (Part IV) This series on hospitality began several posts ago in a Fellowship Hall not far from here. Tonight I want to invite you back to that same Fellowship Hall . . . about seven years ago. It was…
Read MoreEpiphany X
Hospitality (Part II) I’ve been rearranging my office space. Moving shelves and seats, the antique church pew, and other furniture. I’ve been rearranging books and things on shelves. I’m in search of a small round table to expand the creative…
Read MoreEpiphany III
Last weekend I found myself at the Lorraine Motel. Memphis is a town haunted by racism, like most of the South. Like most of the US. It suffers from a legacy of pain and suffering. The cost has been so high for this struggle for justice.
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A Tale of Two Hawks Sitting on the cool concrete floor of a chapel in west Tennessee, I am stunned by the blue of the morning sky. Cold gray branches point their gnarling fingers skyward. An elegant soar of wingspan…
Read MoreAdvent III
St. John’s Abbey church is an amazing cavern with a multi-story wall of honeycomb shaped windows. Each pane is filled with abstract shapes and color. They grow more beautiful as morning light rises. However, this morning the beauty cannot outweigh the exclusivity and harm of the words and deeds of the tradition itself.
Read MoreOrdinary Time XXXVII
For me this week, which ends the church year, also marks coming around full circle in a year of blogging. I began with Advent last year. So this week I will take time to read through all 93 entries of the past year. Except for a six week sabbath in July and August, I blogged twice weekly. I will be noticing themes, ideas, patterns, and even things that are missing.
Read MoreOrdinary Time XXXVI
My daughter loves to hear our childhood stories. She also likes for us to tell stories from the time after we were married, but before she was born. That’s a barrel full of material. So the other day on the way to school, I told her about climbing up to Spence Field. “We wanted to climb high up the mountain so we could see a long way.” I tell her. I don’t tell her that it was also because we were young and wanted to prove ourselves.
Read MoreOrdinary Time XXXIV
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.
Read MoreOrdinary Time XXXII
When a flood overruns the banks of a river, things are swept into surprising places. In early May of 2010 my neighborhood and all of Nashville saw the most dramatic flood in living memory. The news cameras caught a building floating down the interstate. One child was swept through a culvert only to survive. The rivers roses to inundate homes, schools, businesses, cars, roads and bridges. The death toll was over 30. The financial cost of the destruction was estimated in the billions. Efforts to sort through the damage and rebuild from the destruction continue and will for months and years to come.
Read MoreOrdinary Time XXVIII
This Sunday some of us will hear from Luke’s gospel of Jesus. It is a parable about praying. It starts like this. . . . Luke 18:9-10: He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray
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