As we are quickly hurtling toward All Saints Day, it is time for the 2nd annual Church in the Cliff canonization of saints. Each year, we select a few people who exemplify something that we understand about ourselves as a church. Like the Catholic Church, our saints must be dead and must have performed miracles. Of course, we’re a little …
I Want to Forget
This is the 11th of September. I began the day with an easy run in a soft rain, the gray clouds making the green foliage seem to glow with its own light. It is unusually cool out for this time of year in Texas, perhaps signaling an early Fall. What’s left of my lawn after the heat of the summer …
Church Fight!
Church in the Cliff has been through some transitions in the past five years. I say, “transitions,” but anyone who has been around through that time knows that I really mean “meltdowns.” As with any group of human beings that try to get together and sustain relationships, there is sometimes conflict. That is unavoidable. However, what we do with conflict …
Rest from Our Labors
You may have noticed, even through the haze of a beer-soaked, three-day weekend, that this is Labor Day Weekend. We all know this is the unofficial end of summer and, therefore, the day I have to stop wearing my fancy white suits, but it’s also a day that we celebrate labor by taking a break from it. What you may …
Jesus is a Jerk
One of this week’s Scriptures has always troubled me. In Matthew 15.21-28 Jesus is a jerk – kind of a racist jerk. This raises a lot of questions. First, we have to wonder if it really happened. Jesus first ignores the Canaanite woman’s needs and then calls her a dog. That’s not nice. Jesus is nice. We know that from …
Depression and Suicide: Beyond Buzzfeed
The death of Robin Williams this week has brought a ton of information about depression and suicide bubbling to the top of social networks and message boards and content aggregators. That’s probably a good thing. Much of the power that drives a person to that point and keeps one from asking for help is the feeling that one is alone, …
The Cleanse
Some of you might know that I started a 21-day cleanse diet on Monday. This is probably not “church news,” but I wanted to explain some of my thinking because I am looking at it as a spiritual practice. I should start by explaining what it is. It is vegan, but that’s not all. It also eschews alcohol, caffeine, carbs, …
It’s a Miracle. Or Not.
As promised, we’re done with the Apostle Paul for a bit. I hope that we have gained a more generous view of Paul that acknowledges his deep love for a gospel of justice and peace even where his writing can, at times, be problematic. Now we’re going back to the Gospels, so more stories and less jibber-jabber. Specifically, we are …
The Eternal Becoming
One of my developing theses in this section on the Apostle Paul is that his hopes were bigger than he was. His view of the possibilities for his world and his faith was constrained. For example, we have seen how his understanding of physiology shaped his views of what it means to live a spiritual life. For Paul, equality operates …
Loose Screws Sink Shelves
One of the things I think we have all noticed in reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans is a kind of divisiveness. Paul is very concerned to draw distinctions, such as those who live according to the Flesh as opposed to the Spirit. We see something similar in the language of the Matthew passages we have been following. Especially in …