‘The Bible in the Public Square: Reading the Signs of the Times’ by Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, and Jonathan A. Draper, editors

This book has all the joys and all the frustrations of any collection of edited readings. It’s an exploration of Richard Horsley’s “empire” ideas with respect to scripture, as applied to the life of the church and the country in – generally – the Bush administration. There are 15 essays, so the reader can identify [...]

Shoulder-Deep in the Late Bronze Age

Spring has arrived in Bloomington and this Saturday Jennie Kiffmeyer and I will present our workshop Shepherd, Dancer, Poet, King – Teaching and Telling the Stories of King David at a diocesan conference in Indianapolis. We have worked hard, thought hard  and entered deeply into the story – and I am looking forward to sharing [...]

A wild, rainy day in December…

…with the wind wuthering around the house. I’m preparing a program on the history of Christmas carols for a gig on the fourth Sunday of Advent at a retirement home here in Bloomington, and I have been considering the folly of attempting such a program ten blocks or so from the Jacobs School of Music [...]

A fast-moving month…

Bingo! September’s gone!
Not really, but it feels that way. I am on the Building Committee at our church, which turns out to be a disturbingly big commitment that eats time in sizeable chunks. Oh, but it’s fun, though. And I am working on our new welcome brochure, exposing hitherto unexplored and vast areas of technical [...]

What am I doing this for, anyway?

When I started thinking of myself as a storyteller, there were two approaches to the role that I saw in use around me. There are professional storytellers, people like Tracy Radosevic and Dan LeMonnier who make a living from telling and travel all over the country to tell. Then there are people whose professional roles [...]

The Best Thing Out of Lambeth So Far -

I have spent way too much time this last week reading blogs and news reports out of the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion’s every-ten-year convocation of all of its bishops. This wonderful picture is from Sunday’s Eucharist – click on it to see a bigger version. These Malaysian Christians, singing and dancing and playing shakers [...]

On Providing a Refuge from Secular Modernism

Secular modernism is the cultural frame in which much of my life, and yours, takes place. I get my medical care there. My husband works inside that frame – also my son and son-in-law. Secular modernism delivers to me this fine fruit-flavored computer I am using, and resources to do the kind of study [...]

New Verse for “O beautiful, for spacious skies…”

Here’s my additional verse for “O beautiful, for spacious skies” which we’ll
be singing as our closing hymn on Sunday, July 6. Click on the music thumbnail and you’ll get a high-resolution jpg of the whole song – you are welcome to download and use it.
O beautiful, for those who heal, who teach and build and [...]

What do we pray for when we pray for peace?

This week I’ve handled every book in my office at least twice, and as I have waded through them I have noticed how many books there are about praying for peace. I’ve thought for a long time that as global communication has improved – and grown more visual – my faith tradition’s way of creating [...]

Summoning Chaos

It’s Thursday evening and since Monday I have been working along on reorganizing my office. Monday or forever – I forget which. I was space-deprived for quite a number of years and having a room of my own is a puzzling new reality. I don’t even know what to call it…’office’ sounds so…productive. Not reflective [...]