With the new lectionary year approaching with Advent soon at hand, preachers have an additional resource to consider in planning their worship and sermons. A new series, “A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church,” by Dr. Wilda C. Gafney, published its inaugural volumes earlier this year.
Poet Robert Frost was remembered into eternity for having a quarrel with the world, but even more, for loving the world. God grant that we too might be remembered, not so much for the inevitable quarrels, but for our love for the church… for Christ’s church.
Ancestral theology, for those of us who have ascribed to and practiced it, can help define the experience of a comforting, informative visit from ancestor to descendant that opens the descendant’s eyes and heart to God in new and meaningful ways. We are at our best when we are open to the ways and means God uses to restore our souls.
The good news is that we have finally come face-to-face with so many systematic fault lines in our society. I also believe that we as a people are less polarized than our political leaders and news media portray.
The future doesn’t depend on whether progressives or conservatives win. It depends on whether uniters or dividers win. I want to be a uniter. I’m ready to form the first chapter of Dividers Anonymous. I’m ready to change. Anyone want to join me?
When my father was in the last few months of his life, we bought him a clock. This was a date-and-time clock, intended to help keep him oriented as his dementia worsened. It cycled through the date and time, day after day, until one day in June, it suddenly changed to read “It’s Monday Morning.” No time. No date. Just a day and a general time of day. As my dad’s concept of time faded, somehow this clock changed to this very basic way of orienting to time.