Spirituality. Politics. Music. Life.
I’m going to update this blog post each day during the 2024 General Conference, as a way of keeping folks informed, and offering my own view as to what’s happening. Some quick background, before we get started…Feel free to scroll past this lenthy opening part, if you feel you already know enough about United Methodism.But […]
Read More
There are as many as 100 International Delegates not at United Methodist General Conference this year, many of whom are from Africa. This has caused many questions. Allegations have been made that General Conference failed to communicate with them quickly, or the American government failed to issue visas quickly. Calls have been made to investigate. […]
Read More
General Conference starts today, and I am thinking about this song and what might happen these next few weeks. I don’t think it’s an accident that I was introduced to this song by clergywomen colleagues. We were all sitting around a fire pit on a clergy retreat two years ago (I had my guitar…) when several […]
Read More
This week, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church will begin in Charlotte, North Carolina. This will be the first “regular” General Conference since 2016. I thought I would put down a few thoughts ahead of this potentially momentous week for the new United Methodist Church. These will be a combination of personal reflections […]
Read More
Want to help sustain my writing, music, and content creation? Consider a tip or contribution. Venmo here.
Read More
Frederick Buechner once described “Prayer” in a way that leaps to my mind this week, in these days after our communal experience of the Eclipse. Buechner wrote: “We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good […]
Read More
These days after a solar eclipse are probably a good time to remind ourselves of this extended quote from St. Augustine of Hippo.(picture taken by me during “totality”) St. Augustine was a wordy writer, so I’ve edited it down a bit…and it still runs long. But it’s an important word for all of us who […]
Read More
Increasingly, I am convinced the opposite of “faith” is not “doubt,” but “fear.” This is because the deepest level of “faith” is not “belief,” but “trust;” and the opposite of “trust/faith” is “fear/anxiety.” Instead of faith’s opposite, doubt is a part of the journey of faith. Skepticism is, or should be, embraced as how we […]
Read More
The greatest trick Constantine ever played on our world was to convince us that the Empire that killed Jesus should actually embrace the religion that bears his name. Why this isn’t self-obviously shocking to us today is a symptom of both how completely our culture has accepted the ascendancy of Atonement Theology; and also why […]
Read More
Dear Donald Trump: Migrants are not animals.Migrants are not subhuman. Using such language about them is a dangerous and fascist tactic, designed to dehumanize and create “The Other.” Real leaders don’t light these kinds of matches and stoke these kinds of hates.But I guess you know that. Real Christians understand the Hebrew scripture injunction that […]
Read More
WhenEFTalks 
You must be logged in to post a comment.