An imagining of Anna on Easter, with inspiration from Luke 24
This morning we’ve awakened to the most amazing news. Some of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb saw him alive! The news is spreading like wildfire and everyone has an opinion. I pointed out that we know Jesus can bring people back from…..
An imagining of Anna on Good Friday
They’ve crucified him! Abba says it’s true. None of us could believe it when the word came this morning that he’d been taken to the Romans. We knew the Temple priests had it in for Jesus, but selling him out to the Romans?
The Romans may have…..
A further imagining of Anna’s time in Jerusalem
Something is wrong.
We’ve been in Jerusalem since last week, making it just in time to celebrate the last Sabbath in the Temple before the Passover.
Jesus only came the next day. It was glorious the day he arrived. He came into the city on a…..
An imagining based on Luke 8:40-56
We leave tomorrow morning at dawn. I’ve never been so excited to go to Jerusalem before, even though I’ve gone at least twelve times. I guess maybe even more, since some years we’ve gone for all three holidays. Abba tries to set a good…..
I spent last week in London on a theatre tour. Aside from being a great time, seeing seven plays in eight days reminded me once again of the value of stories, especially ones that are told well.
Stories invite us into the lives of others in ways that ordinary interactions with real…..
We love stories that pit the good guys against the bad, especially when, with the odds against them, the “good” win.
But how accurate is this scenario? As an English teacher I would encourage my students to appreciate that realistic heroes are never purely good, nor are villains devoid of merit……
Faith abounds in paradox: juxtaposing concepts that seem contradictory yet are affirmed as truth nonetheless. That God remains in control of the universe while still giving sway to our free will makes a good case in point. I’m not sure it’s worth trying to get our heads around that…..
This week, I’m struck that Valentine’s Day coincided with the first Sunday of Lent: a mash-up of hearts and heartbreak. While February 14th celebrates everything warm and soft and sweet we feel about love, Lent calls us to remember its cost.
We all know that we need love…..
I happen to have a “significant” birthday this week. It has set me to thinking about time.
Time is one of God’s more paradoxical gifts. In every day we each have an equal amount of literal time, but we also each have a different length of lifetime. On…..
Sometimes, when I’m looking at a particularly beautiful sight in nature, whether in person, or in a photo, I shake my head and think, “How can someone see this and not think God is for real?” For me, the world of nature affords such majesty of beauty and variety and surprise it…..