Imaging myself climbing into the casket and being buried with it was the last thing I had ever conceived. But there it was, the casket, my lifeless father, and suddenly an intimate closeness with death. After all, my father had just experienced death, how hard could it be? How bad could it be? Is itContinue reading “Thinking Death, Suicide, Life”
Category Archives: Christianity
Leaning Into Death: An Alternative Reading of Acts 2.42-47
Preaching from Acts 2 this Eastertide, it dawned on me this familiar passage was saying something much simpler, yet more profound, than providing fodder for theological arguments between Pentecostals and, well, every other Christian. The early portion of this chapter (tongues of fire, upper room, etc.), gets most of the attention in the chapter, and rightlyContinue reading “Leaning Into Death: An Alternative Reading of Acts 2.42-47”
My Final Gift to my Father: This Burden
Unsuspecting subjects of the fates is what we become. Persons wandering the land only to be shackled by a yoke fashioned in the randomness of life. Living life, free, free of this burden, the world a place of solace and comfort, then suddenly, that world dies. There is no more freedom, not fromContinue reading “My Final Gift to my Father: This Burden”
Death asks Questions. Ecclesiastes Answers.
Sudden, premature, Death is the great equalizer. Both for those who die and those they leave behind. For those who die, suddenly, everything they were, or weren’t, did, or didn’t do, is finished. Their dreams, their opinions, their loves, their hates, their things and their family, all stay behind. The prince and the pauper meetContinue reading “Death asks Questions. Ecclesiastes Answers.”
Gutless Grieving: Taking Lamentations Seriously
Today, I have been fatherless for one month. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my father dying of heart attack (no family history of them), suddenly leaving us without any opportunity to say “goodbye,” speak final words of love or simply say “thank you” for being a great father, a wonderful granddadContinue reading “Gutless Grieving: Taking Lamentations Seriously”
A Prayer of Lament & Forgiveness
How Lonely sits the city where silence now resides The doorways are clean and empty, the water basins full Yet, there are no ripples in the water No footprints in the walkways The corridors are silent- only filled with the tears of lament The joy of my heart has ceased, our dancing has been turnedContinue reading “A Prayer of Lament & Forgiveness “
NO! You haven’t been here: The Singularity of Grieving Loss
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” – Ludwig Wittgenstein Experiencing the death of a loved one is not fact to be stated, a proposition that is an absolute truth. That a loved one has died IS a fact; that one has experienced the grief of the death is not a fact; itContinue reading “NO! You haven’t been here: The Singularity of Grieving Loss”
We Are What We Do
There is an adage oft repeated by professors of history, theology and bible: form and content, form and content…are two sides of the same coin. To a fledgling student of these disciplines this statement sounds strange, even awkward. As people in cultures, we have preconceived ideas of the meaning of history, what we believe aboutContinue reading “We Are What We Do”
My Confession: God Made Me Do It! Or why I am in a DMin Program
It takes very little for many of us to become enamored with intellectualism and knowledge. This shouldn’t surprise us. Knowledge is power and when suddenly one acquires knowledge that seems to give you leverage over others…well, not only do you acquire said knowledge but one begins to sense the power associated therewith. It feels goodContinue reading “My Confession: God Made Me Do It! Or why I am in a DMin Program”
Don’t Blame Your Vote on the Bible
A curious thing has happened this election cycle, the likes of which I have never witnessed in my 35 years of life: Christians are voting for a man that is completely morally bankrupt. It’s an unusual place for people of faith to find themselves in. Usually, at least where I grew up, the sinner isContinue reading “Don’t Blame Your Vote on the Bible”
ParanormalChrist 