I come from a winter people. My mother’s family is from Norway and I grew up in Rochester, NY where “lake affect” snow buried us every winter. Cold, snow and gray skies feel like home. This has been a great winter for New England. We missed the blizzards which pounded New York City and Washington, […]
What does it mean to be Christian? We teach our children that it means being nice, being kind, and that’s a good place to begin. But I worry when adults take that childhood teaching about nice Christianity and use it to enable others. Codependency is not a Christian virtue. When I have preached on Jesus’ […]
Dave’s mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s Disease. Her short-term memory is long gone. Her husband was admitted to the hospital but she forgot. She came into the kitchen unsteady on her walker: Where’s Paul? “He went to the hospital and will be there overnight, but he’ll be back home tomorrow.” Oh, OK. Twenty minutes later she came […]
A recent article in The New Yorker reports on scientific studies of psychedelic drugs. In “The Trip Treatment,” Michael Pollan interviews both psychologists and subjects to learn how hallucinogenics could be used to treat terminal cancer patients by easing their anxiety with drug-induced dreams of life beyond death. The sense of well-being they experience while “tripping” on […]
This first week of school many children, youth and adults seek to gain more knowledge and to learn something new. Indeed, there is so much to know. Here’s an amazing fact: in his day, William Shakespeare could have read everything ever written in the English language. Today, one could not possibly read everything written about […]
If only we could learn the causes of violence. In a recent column Motive of destruction, (Boston Globe 1/8/14) Daniel Benjamin writes about terrorism, bombings and mass shootings. It now appears that the Boston marathon was not an organized act of terrorism, but rather the work of a mentally unstable young man and his brother. […]
At first the film Gravity seemed too fantastic. I mean when would I be dressed like an astronaut working on a space shuttle like Sandra Bullock’s character Ryan Stone? Then I recognized the spin. You know the one. Weightless without gravity she turns and spins with no direction, no stopping and no grounding. She is frightened, […]
One… What to buy to surprise your child? What to purchase to surprise your spouse? What to wrap to surprise your parents? We shop and plan and bake and wrap. Searching for that perfect gift that our friend both wants and will be surprised to receive, we hunt through malls, pore through catalogues, and listen […]
Thich Nhat Hanh visited Copley Square in Boston. Thousands of people came to be in the presence of the great Zen Buddhist monk. They gathered, they sat down, they expectantly waited, and for 25 minutes there was as close to sheer silence as an urban center could be. I love this idea of silence as […]
At worship last Sunday at Worcester Fellowship, an outdoor ministry with folks who are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless, the pastor welcomed people for a prayer of blessing and a laying on of hands. Her question was whether anyone had an anniversary to celebrate – being free of drugs or alcohol or violence. One […]