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One thing COVID-19 has done definitively is to remind us that we’re not in charge. In fact, it’s a pretty outsized object lesson in that truth. Surely there’s enough that happens in life without a pandemic to convince us that life doesn’t go according to our own scripts.
Still, we do have a love affair with being in charge. This desire to be our own God is as old as the Garden of Eden…..
Have you ever tried to tell the story of Easter to a child? It’s daunting.
In the first place, it’s at least R-rated. There is political manipulation, payoffs, treachery, fear, horrific torture, as well as the death of the hero. No wonder we want to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Bunny and call that the holiday.
But at some point, we have to grow up and face the darkness. Not only what happened during the original Holy Week, but…..
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Confession time here. As a regular church goer, I do a certain amount of uncharitable internal eye rolling when I see churches fill up at Christmas and Easter. It’s not that I don’t want to welcome people to church. I’m truly glad they come, but I’m also wondering why they come only for these high holy days.
I can sort of appreciate the draw of the Christmas candlelight service with the beautiful familiar carols…..
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Our current circumstance of sheltering at home brings this expression, “Misery loves company” to mind rather readily. Yes, we’re all in this “same boat” but we can’t get together physically to moan about it! I suppose the expression could mean: “If I have to be miserable, I want everyone to suffer right along with me,” but that’s not the interpretation I’m going for. I’m missing the solace we would normally get from airing our…..
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Who thought anything could put the whole world on “pause”? In almost no time, COVID-19 has achieved what our collective ideologies should have acknowledged long ago: despite all our differences, we’re still all humans living on the same orb. We believers would add – beholden and answerable to the…..
The gospel writer John narrates Jesus’ encounter with Pilate (John 18:33-38):
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people…..
When “Amazing Grace” proclaims, “I once was lost, but now am found,” it resonates with Christians. We celebrate ourselves as “found” people, humans transformed because they know God loves them.
But the notion of being a “found” people can easily give way to an untrue corollary: once found, you’ll never be…..
In the days when I was raising my children and not working outside the home, I would sometimes bristle at calling myself a “homemaker.” It made a better title than “housewife” (which I couldn’t stand!), but didn’t seem to cover what I considered the extraordinariness of my job. Often I would correct people and insist…..
Do you know people in your life who are forever qualifying requests with, “As long as it’s no trouble,” or “Don’t go to any special effort on my account”? Perhaps these “courtesies” work in our more formal social settings, but the person who delivers them even in a relaxed atmosphere among close friends or family can make…..
When a character in the science fiction movie “The Matrix” needs to make a getaway in a helicopter, she downloads the knowledge of a pilot’s license into her brain and proceeds to take off in the chopper.
As preposterous as this sounds in real life, I wonder if sometimes we are…..