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Phloem and Xylem: Being resurrected

Three things for this week’s blog: 1) A brief reflection on spring/resurrection. 2) CMC in the news. 3) Quarterly Sabbath Weekend note.

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When spring is, finally, in full motion, one might be tempted to panic. Life is pushing out everywhere, some grand revelation is underway, and my blurred eyes can barely perceive it. How many more chances will I get?

“Raised up,” is how the Scriptures speak of resurrection. The form is acted upon, effortless. No one sees the moment when it happens, but there it is, in front of you. The panic comes with the thought...

Practice Resurrection

Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Last year about this time I had a conversation with a pastor friend from Virginia. He noted that his congregation had decided to carry the theme of resurrection all the way through the Easter season...

Peace on My Mind

This past Monday I had the opportunity to attend the Student Peace Conference at OSU. It was a really nice event, and it was exciting to see so many young people interested in learning about peacemaking. There was not much sustained conversation about any one topic, but I thought I would pass along some of the various intriguing ideas I took away from the event:

During a workshop on conflict resolution, the presenter offered a framework for understanding how we make decisions during times of conflict. This framework used a graph with one axis labeled “Concern for Goal”

Faces and names

So you’ve been talking with or saying hello to that person at church for months, or years, and you appreciate the relationship. There’s just one thing slightly uncomfortable about it. You have no clue what their name is, and now it’s to the point where it’s embarrassing to ask. I know this about you because many of you have mentioned to me that you regularly have this experience.

We put a high value on being community for each other, and we are blessed with enough of us hanging around in this congregation that it’s hard to remember names of more than just a close circle of...

Saint Patrick

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s day. I forgot to wear green, but no one pinched me. Like St. Valentine’s Day, or Christmas and Saint Nicholas, the lives of these saints are something akin to the background radiation from the big bang – still there if you really look for it, but certainly not the first thing you think of when you look around at what things have become. Green beer, for example.

St. Patrick lived in fifth century Britain and served as a slave in Ireland for six years, returning later in life to be the first bring the gospel to Ireland. Two cool things about the Irish...

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