Settlers and sojourners
Wherever we find ourselves to be, together as settlers, refugees, and sojourners, we can become contributing members and citizens of our new home.
ABHMS board of directors wholeheartedly affirms women pastors
For generations, women have served in every level of leadership within the denomination and the local church. For us, ordaining women to serve in pastoral roles is a settled issue.
Still okay?
Many negative references remain in our common discourse about race, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, religious practice, and a host of other categories of human experience. The difference is, when used in public forums, the transgressor will be fired or politically maligned or cancelled or publicly shamed for using them. In contrast, commentators, politicians, preachers, and celebrities of all kinds can pepper their conversation with pejorative references to those who live with mental illness without consequence.
ChatGPT and me. Thanks, but no thanks.
The developing talks and discussion around ChatGPT have caused quite a stir as they enter a territory I feel I have some stake in; the art and discipline of capturing words.
Grief by way of graphic novel
Earlier this year, a dear friend died suddenly and unexpectedly. Since then, my days and weeks have been filtered through those times when little things catch me off guard: a now defunct phone number I cannot bear to delete, a book I think to recommend to him before I sigh with lament when I remember that I no longer can. Little stuff that points to the loss that lingers. The new graphic novel Ephemera: A Memoir by Briana Loewinsohn has provided some comfort.
Is the church collapsing?
Is the church collapsing? The answer to this question both soothes and troubles me… because it’s yes and no.