As I look at all the leaves changing around me, and as I feel the cold bite of the air growing sharper, I am reminded of the wonder of our world. We don’t often consider it, but “wonder” is incredibly important to sustaining and empowering the Christian life. Why? Because wonder is how we transform, expand, and renew our… Continue reading On Wonder: a Short Reflection
Today is World Communion Sunday and let me say that Communion is one of my favorite sacraments the Church celebrates. I think there is something so transformative in the simple act of eating together – of eating in common-unity. As Christians, we should pay very close attention to how we eat together. As I was… Continue reading The Politics of the Lunch Room
*inhale - exhale - inhale - sigh* If there is one thing that I became uncomfortably familiar with at the beginning of this Covid-tide, it was my own (sometimes bad) breath! In light of the mask mandates, the rising cases, and the reticent to go out - much less go somewhere inside, I became starkly aware… Continue reading Catching Our Breath
The following was an assignment for a course for which I was asked to analyze a philosopher and a theologian inspired by that philosopher using an alternative writing technique. I chose to analyze Aristotle and Aquinas, but instead of using their methods, I used Augustine's Confessional style. The Confessions was one of the first theology… Continue reading Confessions of Wonder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP6tJew5lN4 "Well its 3 AM again, like it always seems to beDrivin' northbound, drivin' homeward, drivin' wind is drivin' meAnd it just seems so funny that I always end up hereWalkin outside in the storm while looking way up past the tree-lineIt's been some time" It truly had been some time since I last turned… Continue reading 3 AM: An Existential Introspection
"Show me your friends, and I will show you your future." In my Church youth group, this phrase was preached to warn teenagers about the company they keep. Although well-intentioned, it encouraged transactional relationships for personal gain while simultaneously urging youth to repress their problems among peers and choose friends based on outward appearances. In… Continue reading Friendship: A Folk-Punk Gospel
About a month ago, as I was preparing to start a centering prayer, I felt compelled to "speak in tongues" - a practice I have not done in years. It was an incredibly powerful and sacred moment. Honestly, this shocked me. I have deconstructed much of my Pentecostal heritage, and I thought the practice would… Continue reading Tongues part 2: The Language of Sacred Gobbledygook
"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one… Continue reading Tongues part 1: My Upper Room Experience
"Our eschatology shapes our ethics." - Rob Bell, Love Wins Eschatology (the study of the last things) is often a reading and interpreting one’s own time. For ancient Jews and early Christians, eschatological readings of history were done through apocalyptic (revelatory) events or writings which colored their understanding of the last things. In this sense, an… Continue reading The Apocalypse of the Cross and the End of History
I started asking a question during my Junior year of high school which would forever change my life, "Why God?" To clarify, by "why God?" I didn't mean "why, God?" I wasn't pleading for God to reveal the hidden meanings of life's tragedies (although... to be honest, I contended with the absurdity of existence plenty… Continue reading “Why God?”
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