Fragment Ointment: Applying Care at the Right Time
We sat in a circle around a small table on which a single purple candle burned. After slowing reading together on of the psalms from the Hebrew Bible, one of the women read a passage from the Gospel of...
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What Was He Like?
What kind of person was Mohammed? Was Confucius a rigid individual or a fun loving person? Was Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) an introvert or an extrovert? What was Jesus’ outlook on life? The...
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An Open Letter to Bill Maher
Dear Bill: From the years when you hosted a show on network TV, I’ve respected your commentary and insight. You’ve provided clear, objective critique of political issues and maintained a good sense of...
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Lady Gaga: What is the Truth?
She’s regularly in the news. She’s the current a pop sensation. She generates press by acting, dressing, and presenting herself as over-the-top. At age 24, Stefani Germanotta has achieved international...
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Wake-Up! Stay Alert!
Keep watch! Stay alert! Those are the words Jesus used several times in the gospels attributed to Mark and Matthew. The concept is clear: you don’t know when the realm of God will break into your life,...
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Resiliency: The Movement through Death to Life
Human beings are amazing! We have a unique capacity to move through overwhelmingly difficult circumstances and toward living in ways that are dynamic and vibrant. In the field of mental health, this...
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The Children of Abraham and the Government
It was a curious comment. While I didn’t disagree with it, I was struck by it because it seemed out of context from anything else. The emailed comment simply said: “Finished reading a booklet … on...
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Religion vs. Jesus
It’s another video on YouTube. But unlike most, it went viral very quickly. Within a week of its posting, it received 12,500,000 hits. Other videos have been made in response, both in favor of and...
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The Untold Story
It’s difficult to be a teenager in a small, rural town. One quickly learns that gossip spreads quickly and little things come back to haunt you. Anything unusual that happened with you and your friends...
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Lessons from My Family about Immigration
I am in awe that all four of my grandparents were part of a great exodus to the United States. From 1890 to 1914, 70% of the immigrants to the United States were from Eastern and Southern Europe. It...
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A Progressive Christian Minister Reconsiders Atonement
Sometimes I attend services in an Episcopal Church. Before people share the bread and wine known as communion, the priest makes a dramatic gesture. Holding the circular bread-wafer so that all can...
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Making Sense of the Resurrection of Jesus Today
Growing up during the Cold War Era in a family proud of its Eastern European heritage and belonging to an ethnic Eastern European church, there was a story I heard periodically around Easter time. The...
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Pain and Paradise
It’s a stark image, one familiar to Christians who observe the time of Lent and Good Friday. Jesus hangs on a cross. On either side of him are two other criminals who also received a death sentence....
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The Christianity of Jesus
I have several friends who no longer call themselves “Christian.” It’s not that they’ve lost their faith or given up on God or something like that. Instead, they don’t want to be associated with the...
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Make Sense of the Crucifixion of Jesus
Crucifixion: truly a brutal, violent way to kill another human being. A person hangs naked on a cross with lungs filling with fluid, struggling to breathe, and then succumbing after hours of struggle...
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The Christian Church is Dying
The Christian Church in the United States is dying. That should come as no surprise to anyone. It happened in Western Europe and Australia after World War II. It happened in Canada and Ireland as...
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Lent and the God of Jesus
It’s an ancient tradition. Over the last 1500 years or so, Christians have observed a period of prayer and fasting prior to Easter. In time, a forty-day period (Sundays aren’t included because...
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Jesus, God’s Glory, and the Law of Attraction
It’s an age-old question … one that people continue to ask. Why is this happening? Things happen to us that we view as bad. We look for a reason. We ask these questions when we don’t get the job we...
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Transitions and Transfigurations
I’ve experienced many different kinds of transitions in my life. I’ve lived in Johnstown, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Morgantown, WV; Miami Beach, FL; Tucson, AZ; St. Louis, MO; and Atlanta, GA. Movements...
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The Church: A Broken Institution That Can’t Be Fixed
It’s a statement that resonated within me as soon as she said it. “I went into ministry to help people. Now that I’m retired, I realized that I spent most of my time trying to fix a broken institution...
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