Spirituality. Politics. Music. Life.
For those of us interested in the connection between art and spirituality (and, actually, I hope that is most of us…) there’s a new local podcast out there that you need to check out. It’s called “Art and Soul of North Texas,” and it’s created by my friend Shelly Niebuhr. Shelly is a wonderful artist […]
Read MoreI cannot recommend highly enough this essay titled “A Matter of Pride: Why We Can’t Buy Off the Next Osama Bin Laden.” The essay is a helpful addition to our understanding of what makes a terrorist “tick.” The authors (Peter Bergen and Michael Lind) first take issue with the “conventional wisdom” that “poverty leads to […]
Read MoreLast Sunday night, our family pulled out the boxes from the attic and put up our Christmas tree. I cherish this ritual more each year that passes. Perhaps like ours, your Christmas tree tells a kind of family history. On our tree, there are small, red apple ornaments I bought the first year I was […]
Read MoreAdapted from a sermon at Northaven Church, delivered this morning…EF Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We had an incredibly restful one around here. We decided to stay here at home, just the three of us. We still did up the whole turkey/dressing/meal thing. It was wonderfully peaceful. Not that we don’t love our […]
Read MoreMaybe the song is too simplistic, and visualizing one of the world’s long-standing conflicts as nothing more than a “sibling rivalry” is naive. But the metaphor seems to fit, to my mind. Most sibling rivalries go on for so long that nobody even remembers quite what started them. This story starts with two “half brothers” […]
Read MoreToday, the DaVinci Code madness starts all over again. Actually, the madness has been building for several months now, ahead of the release of the DaVinci Code movie today. (In theaters around the planet, to read the press release) As many of you know, I have the theological training (seminary degree) and literary training (journalism […]
Read MoreI keep seeing hawks here in North Dallas. I don’t remember ever seeing them before about six months ago. But, since then, I’ve seen maybe four or five. Most of them have been soaring high above Kiowa Creek Park, winding up and down our neighborhood tributary of White Rock Creek. They tower above the creek […]
Read MoreIt’s far too late to really blog extensively on Easter this year. We had a fine, fine morning at church. Really good crowd. All was well. Had a great time with family this afternoon too. My own thoughts about Easter this morning were primarily inspired by Sarah Dylan Breuer; one of the finest online preacher/writers […]
Read MoreBut, sadly, we tend to sometimes forget what great religious teachers like Jesus actually said and did, and we sometimes reduce religion down to a dualistic set of rule following. These rules tend to describe a kind of fundamental dualism that this kind of religion offers up as explanation for the the very nature of […]
Read MoreI didn’t first learn the Christmas story in church. I mean really learn it…grasp it…comprehend it…have it take root in my soul. It wasn’t that I didn’t go to church. I did. It wasn’t that I they didn’t try teach the Christmas story. They did. I wish I could say it happened in church. But […]
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