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if i look back, i am lost
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Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
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Not today Justin
NASA
izzy's playlists!
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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
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@adventuresinfollowing
Compassion
“Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. Compassion constituted a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of “lawfulness” in Jesus’ time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one…
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Stripping The Altar
What a strange practice that after Holy Thursday we strip the altar and the sanctuary bare. The colors of purple that hints toward an interesting combination of the royalty of a king or the darkness of lamenting. The candles, the brass, and colorful things that point to light and life. One by one these things are taken out of our worship space or covered up. What a strange thing to do, but this…
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Drinks On The House The host shouts "Drinks on the house" and the guests cheer. The party moves and sways as joy and laughter swell.
Parable of the boy and the frogs
Parable of the boy and the frogs
A typical second grade boy cannot be expected to understand when a parent says “Just a few minutes.” He was in the garage dressed in his nice jeans with his button up shirt tucked in, and hair all combed ready to go to the church dinner on a Wednesday night. Mom sticks her head through the door and says, “We will be leaving in just a few minutes.” The door shuts as Mom goes back in to finish…
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It Is Exhausting Being Us – When There Are So Many Of Them.
It Is Exhausting Being Us – When There Are So Many Of Them.
As the inauguration unfolds and a new president is sworn in I feel exhausted. I’ve seen some filled with excitement and I’ve listened to others grieving, but to be honest most seem tired. Our journey continues to be filled with more and more fences, lines, boundaries and borders between ‘us’ and ‘them’. We spend words defining ‘us’; defining ‘them’. We work hard at making 140 characters have the…
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Point of Contact
One of my favorite movies is Contact from 1997 with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. A scene from the movie popped in my head when I was preparing for my sermon last week exploring the “Lies We Tell Ourselves: If I Only Had ‘This’ I Would Be Happy”. McConaughey’s character, Palmer Joss, an author and theologian who wrestles because there are things he has experienced that he can’t explain…
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Lament - Persecuted Church
Lament – Persecuted Church
Persecuted Church
O God, remember your people, those who have responded in faith to your grace and love, who stand together as your holy church. Many Members of your Body, the church, by placing themselves under your gracious lordship have been pressed on every side, crushed, persecuted, and struck down. We often forget our sisters and brothers who are persecuted or martyred simply for claiming…
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Lament - Society
Lament – Society
Society
Teach us and lead us O God because history reveals that even humanities best attempts at shaping a thriving society that is good is often built on the backs of the oppressed, on land unjustly taken, with astonishing amounts of weapons. The society we live in is marked by a culture of destruction that seems to believe the only way to peace is to threaten or inflict violence or to imprison…
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Lament - Enemies
Lament – Enemies
Enemies
O God, do not keep silent; be not be quiet (ps 83) for there are enemies in this world who seek to kill and destroy. We see people who are so sure of their point of view there is no room for any other perspective. We see lives distorted by hatred that erupts in the use weapons and words. God we want peace, and we want justice, but we are often quick to forget that your justice does not…
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Lament - People Caught in the Crossfire
Lament – People Caught in the Crossfire
People Caught in Crossfire
God, why do you hide your face (ps44 and ps13) and forget how violence rarely has a razor sharp focus, so it tends to leave casualties in all directions. It is a tragedy that we draw a distinction between innocent and intended victims. We ache for those caught in the cross fire or in the blast radius of someone’s intended evil. Escalating violence has led families to…
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Lament - First Responders
Lament – First Responders
First Responders
How long, O Lord? (ps89) How Long will we need to have first responders who rush into the chaos of another attack. How long will men and women who have answered a calling toward justice and peace face death all day long? How long will we send men and women to war? How long will they come home with a lost limb, or wake up with nightmares because they are scarred by the violent…
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Lament - Family and Friends
Lament – Family and Friends
Family and Friends
It is sad that we have to invent words like “terrorism” to make sense of the violence that affects an extended intimate web of family and friends. Acts of violence never isolate their affects only to intended victims. There are children whose parents didn’t come home, and parents robbed of the joy of seeing a child grow. There are families whose whole trajectory is forever…
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Lament - Victims
Lament – Victims
Victims
Lord God, we ache and hurt because there are victims. Explosions, bombs, bullets, and blades have been used to dismember and destroy and take life. We grieve because we have witnessed your precious gift of imagination turn things of human innovation like airplanes and buses into instruments of evil to wreak havoc, bring destruction, strike fear, and take life. God, it hurts to not only…
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Lost Art of Lament
Lost Art of Lament
We live in a broken world, and we often live in one of two extremes. Sometimes we lean far over and put on the smile while ignoring the darkness and devastation around us. Then sometimes we lean far over in the other direction and we are overwhelmed despairing over the currently highlighted reason to be afraid. Whether it is a political candidate being depicted as this cycles new Satan, the…
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Beautiful Inside and Out
Beautiful Inside and Out
Last week, for a little sermon research, I went to Sertoma Art Center and was able to sit in and observe a pottery class. Pottery has of course now risen a bit higher on my “fun-do” list after this experience. The instructor Gaines Bailey began walking around after demonstrating throwing a few pots. He leaned in and guided a student. The student had centered the clay and a vessel was beginning to…
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Universal Donors Hebrews 12:18-29 speaks of Jesus being a mediator and the blood he gave made a new covenant.
Safe
Hebrews 12:18-29 But you have come …. to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word…
There are two mountains, but one God. One mountain of awe, fear and trembling and another mountain with a joyful heavenly banquet. We are invited to encounter God, the God of both mountains. Sometimes I do think of Jesus Christ in a simplified, my BFF, kind of…
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