This Sunday I walked into a new church. I’m not a stranger to church. But this was different. I wasn’t just visiting, I was looking.
The Common Table
The Wall
It’s time, again, to go out. Out beyond the known walls. This has meant so much more than a Sunday change. It’s about hearing new voices, meeting and listening to new people, reading new authors, engaging and participating: not as one with an agenda but as one who has a lot to learn.
I could have written this as a 21-year old finishing college, and I daresay I did. I went off my security grid and into a gritty part of LA, listening to lives as different from my own as I could imagine. Teens in the neighborhood didn’t give a damn about Continue reading “The Wall”
Living the Painting: Advent Week Four
If the Return of the Prodigal Son were a theater production, which part would I audition for? After spending Advent immersed in the story, I know I could play either son well. But do I have what it takes to play the father?
I set out on this writing project without knowing it would end where it started: Continue reading “Living the Painting: Advent Week Four”
Lost in Advent: Week Three
Last week the Peace of Advent was seen in the prodigal son’s return to the father of Advent Hope from week one. This third Sunday of Advent – themed on Joy – I’m seeing myself in the older brother. And it’s not hard for me to do. Especially Continue reading “Lost in Advent: Week Three”
Child Again: Advent Week Two
The prodigal son was once an innocent child, and then he wasn’t. And now he wants to be again.
Last week‘s Advent focused on Hope by sitting with the Father on the porch, “actively waiting for that moment when the child turns home.” This week I’m inviting myself to return home with the son, who like the second week of Advent, is yearning for Peace. I’m spending time with Rembrandt’s painting and Nouwen’s book to cast new light on my favorite parable.
The prodigal son was a child, a young man, who declared in the most dramatic way, “Myself.” My daughter as a toddler would pull Continue reading “Child Again: Advent Week Two”
The Porch: Advent Week One
When the father runs off the front porch, down the pathway to meet the son staggering home – THAT is the Christmas story. All those months waiting on the parental porch, hoping for a return, praying into embrace, THAT is Advent.
Our Christmas morning wrapping-paper-flinging has always Continue reading “The Porch: Advent Week One”
A Wasteful Embrace
If history gave us mulligans, I would infiltrate the Crusades and make one tiny change. Instead of a crusade of control and conversion, I would wage a war of wasteful embrace. And marching Continue reading “A Wasteful Embrace”
