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What if the majority of the world’s 8 billion people could share in a season of spiritual grounding?  What if over half of humanity would focus, all at the same time, on the practices that lead to harmony within oneself and justice in society? 

Well…

The Muslim month of Ramadan began on Sunday.  Because the Islamic calendar is based on lunar cycles, Ramadan slowly migrates within our solar calendar, appearing a little earlier each year.  We’re in a window of years when it overlaps with our Christian observation of Lent.  Both Ramadan and Lent contain calls for searching one’s...

I recently finished the book Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May. The title jumped out at me because my interests around creativity and spiritual formation leave me intrigued at the idea of “awakening wonder.” What’s more, the term “enchantment” is one way that I think we talk about experiences of transcendence. Even though the author is not writing from any specific religious tradition, she talks about various experiences of enchantment through the lens of spirituality and, on occasion, muses through issues of theology.

Here is how she defines...

The subject line comes from a presentation I heard last Thursday: “Professional Mourners, Grieving Mothers, and the Divine Politics of Lament.”  This was part of the annual two-day Schooler Institute at Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO).  The speaker was CMCer Dr. Ryan Schellenberg.    

Some things I’m stilling pondering:

The practice of lament is woven throughout our scriptures.  There are Psalms of lament, stories of lament, and an entire book bearing the name Lamentations responding to the devastating loss of Jerusalem and its temple in Babylonian times.  Many...

Yesterday started with a surprise.  As I approached the main entrance of the church, a neighbor across Broadway Place informed me that a gray SUV had just pulled up, shot something at our front door, and driven off.  She had reported it to the police.  Sure enough, the glass on the right door was shattered, with a hole at the point of impact.  A brief search on the sidewalk revealed the likely projectile – a rock the size of a small egg with nicks on one side.  Probably a slingshot.

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It’s the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday.  I thought it was rare for this to overlap with Valentine’s Day, until Google revealed this happened as recently as 2018 and will happen again in 2029…

Our worship theme this Lent is “Encounters On the Way.” We’ll follow Jesus through Mark’s gospel as he encounters people and questions on his way to and through Jerusalem.  These stories are more challenging than comforting, and the visual installation in the sanctuary throughout the season represents the hard edges and indirect route of this path. 

Similar to how...

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