James Alison James Alison – Standing at the Edge of an Impact Imagine two different groups of scientists. One group, armed with a set of encyclopedic guidebooks which are constantly being annotated, take turns to look at a distant star or galaxy through an extremely powerful telescope. The scientists offer comments from what they see, and in the light of what they
Featured Suicide: Offering Help to Those Feeling Hopeless, and Accepting Our Limitations – a guest post by Emily Ostrowski This article comes from friend and co-worker Emily Ostrowski. Emily is a suicide prevention counselor working with an organization that helps youth dealing with suicidal ideation. I think you’ll find what she’s offered here both helpful and moving. In Infinite Jest, renowned author David Foster Wallace, who tragically
Featured Sucide: Defined By Life – a guest post by Julie Heidingsfelder I have at least two more posts to share with all of you on the subject of suicide. This one comes from a woman, Julie Heidingsfelder, who is a member in our meeting. Julie has been impacted by the suicides of her grandfather and aunt. We are telling these stories
Featured Suicide: The Devil’s Own Loaves & Fishes – a guest post by Peggy Parsons This post was written in 2010 for Peggy’s Personal blog “A Silly Poor Gospel” after the death of Friend and member of Freedom Friends Church of which she was then the pastor. Peggy’s ministry has been important to me over the years and this post is no different.
Featured Suicide: The End of Paranoia – a guest post by Aaron Scott This post continues the theme of reflecting on suicide and its impact in our lives. It is written by Aaron Scott, a close friend, biblical scholar, poverty initiative activist, and all around awesome person. She lost her grandpa earlier this year to mental illness, here is some of Aaron and
Featured Suicide: When Nobody Is Waiting for you Tomorrow Image on flickr by martin_kelley This week is suicide prevention week and so it’s got me thinking more about suicide. I wrote some of my story about the suicide of my step-dad a few weeks back called “Suicide and the Things We Carry”. My wife Emily and I
The Artful Prayer for Revolutionary Love by Denise Levertov That a woman not ask a man to leave meaningful work to follow her. That a man not ask a woman to leave meaningful work to follow him. That no one try to put Eros in bondage. But that no one put a cudgel in the hands of Eros. That
Quotations John Greenleaf Whittier (on outward evidence not availing us) They fail to read clearly the signs of the times who do not see that the hour is coming when, under the searching eye of philosophy and the terrible analysis of science, the letter and the outward evidence will not altogether avail us; when the surest dependence must be upon
Featured A Community that Does Not Yet Exist (Luke 14) This is the text I preached on this past Sunday. “When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished
Featured Meeting is a Muscle: Teaching Worship To Children / Chad Stephenson This is a guest post written by Chad Stephenson a Quaker from San Francisco. It is a response to the Friends Journal article “Bringing Children to Worship” and my follow-up article found here. This article comes largely from Chad’s work with children as a librarian as the San Francisco
Blog Entries Suicide and The Things We Carry: A Meditation on the Loss of a Father Suicide and The Things We Carry: A Meditation on the Loss of a Father
Featured Listening for God: The Eagle and the Bent Woman (Lk 13) “Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and
Featured Describing “Silent” Worship to Children Awhile back I did a Godly Play story during our meeting for worship. We invited the children to say with the adults and participate in our listening to the story. After the story we had our normal 15 minutes of silent, or waiting, worship. This is a description I wrote
Featured Thoughts on Bringing Children To Worship As parents bringing children and teens to a time of worship can be a struggle. We place a lot of expectations on our kids and often hope they won’t “misbehave” during church. Plus, it is easy to succumb to their rowdiness, distraction and desire for entertainment. The last thing
Featured Listening as an Act of Faith (Hebrews 11) “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 NRSV) Introduction: Red Phone Skit – LInk There is No Red Phone If we’re going to talk about what it means to listen to God’s Spirit, then I think we need
Blog Entries There is No Red Phone [A Skit] This is a skit we did just before my message this past Sunday. We had fun with it. [Person picks up red phone and dials. Sound of Phone ringing. God Picks up.] God: Hello? Person: Hello…is this God? God: Yes, this is God. Who is this? Person: This is
Quotations Rufus Jones – What is Vital? The time has come – it is long overdue – for a Christianity that is fresh and vital and in conformity with established truth, but, what is no less important, proves its reality by the test-tube method of corresponding results. Too long our Christianity has consisted of words – has begun and ended
Blog Entries I dreamed a dream I rarely have vivid dreams but last night I had a dream that a random group of people followed me as I walked home. They shouted “hey boy,” I could hear them with chains clinking and baseball bats smacking their hands. They wanted to kill me. I escaped by hiding
Uncategorized Listening From the Divine Perspective (Hosea 11) “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them
Quotations George Bernard Shaw – The True joy of Life This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I
Blog Entries Mysticism, Revolution or Suicide? One of the books I’m reading currently is Henri Nouwen’s “Wounded Healer.” There is a lot that is quote-worthy in this text but I wanted to draw out a couple of quotes that have specifically speak to me. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, Nouwen states
Featured Having Ears to Hear: Moving Towards Sympathy (Amos 8) As you are all well aware this past weekend a not guilty verdict was handed down to George Zimmerman acquitting him of the murder of Trayvon Martin, the teenage african-american boy he shot last year. Martin had been walking through Zimmerman’s neighborhood wearing a hoodie and carrying a bag
Blog Entries Jesus and Love – James Alison We often speak of God as love, but what do we mean by that? Often “love” is used to mean “don’t take sides,” “remain neutral,” but is this reflective of who God is revealed to be in Jesus? I like James Alison’s response to this question: God’s
Featured Revelation #Sketchnotes Reading Revelation #Sketchnotes, a photo by cwd1978 on Flickr. Here are some sketchnotes I’ve put together as a kind of overview of some of the things I’ve tried to focus on as I was reading, studying and preaching through this difficult book. You can find the rest of
Featured Revelation is Remix (Revelation 21-22) The ‘Self-Portrait’ as Remix A couple weeks back I showed you this image [Bob Dylan’s album titled Self-Portrait]. The cover image is one that Dylan himself painted. I couldn’t find any mention of who the cover was supposed to be, but it has a certain resemblance to Pablo
