I have arrived in beautiful Lakewood, NY. This marks the closest I have ever been to the Great Lakes – in fact, I pulled off the highway to see Lake Erie up close and personal. Also, I didn’t think the change coming from Tennessee to New York would be an increase in trees, but I swear I have never seen such an endless expanse of forest as I did in the last 30 miles to Lakewood. Continue reading
Five days. In five days, I set off for Lakewood, New York, for the first leg of my journey. I can hardly believe that the crazy fantasy of one year ago has turned into a concrete reality. In final preparation, I’m about to sell off all of my childhood belongings in a massive two-day yard sale. Hopefully I won’t have a breakdown over the Pokémon and Pogs… Continue reading
“Tonight, we will be singing short musical responses, repeating them over and over. The repetition of a short phrase helps to quiet the chatter of our monkey brains so that we can go deeper into our hearts and souls. We encourage you to try the Latin texts, since the simple and clear vowels help to create beautiful and calm music, but if you want to sing the English translation, that will be just fine.”
That is the leader of the first Taizé service I have ever taken part in. Taizé (teh-ZAY) is a small ecumenical monastic order in Burgundy, France that reaches out to any Christian communities that want to provide a “less busy” worship service for Christians of a contemplative bent. Continue reading
Yes, yes, I gave in and saw the midnight showing of Harry Potter. In my defense, I had only seen three of the previous movies (none in theaters), and I was entirely peer pressured into it.
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want key plot points revealed, read this later!
I am writing because Dumbledore’s character troubles me. Continue reading
In case it seems like my ADD has gotten me off track, I just want to – Oh, man look at that butterfly! Just kidding. I want to clarify that I am using this summer to raise the questions I hope to find some answers to over the next year of travel. It will not always seem to relate directly to the “year of exploration,” but I hope to tie it all back in over the next 12 months.
Today’s question: What does it take to be a family? It’s a valid question, and one that becomes harder to answer the more you think about it. It can be personal; it can be political; it can be spiritual. No matter how you think about it, family is a complex thing to tackle. Continue reading
You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” –Paul, as quoted in Acts 20:34-35
Few things seem to rile people up quite like a church’s finances. How it generates income, what it does with it when it gets it, and so on. It’s one of the things I want to explore next year: Exactly how does each church view its role in the economy; what is the purpose of tithing; how much should clergy get paid; can I get a Benz as an ordination present? Continue reading
I was right: Those first two days of Vacation Bible School were deceptively good – the “honeymoon period,” you might say. When the little ones came in yesterday morning, it was like someone had replaced the girls’ kneecaps with springs and their mouths with…well, really talkative mouths. The boys
weren’t much better; every activity automatically turned into an epic battle to the death. Holding hands to cross the street was a tug-of-war contest; paper plate tambourines turned into bludgeoning weapons; not even Baby Moses was safe, since his clay basket was clearly better suited for bombing helpless victims. All told, their behavior turned most heinous. Continue reading
Life Reconciling 