Singing Along the Journey

Psalms

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More

Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
Read More

Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
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Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
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Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
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Trees and Taize

I'm into the third week of my program here at San Francisco Theological Seminary and I am thinking about many things...but most of all, trees and Taize.  Just indulge me, for a moment. As a traveler, I always do the best I can to experience the place I am visiting, so of course I have devoted any spare moment to exploration.  I spent hours in the beautiful Sonoma Valley and the Russian River Valley and last weekend I visited the Sonoma coast;  but what touches my imagination and my spirit most is, well, the trees. Redwoods, that is. The big trees.  I first visited Muir Woods 15 years ago and…
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Breaking the silence with another’s words…

Yesterday, as I worked cleaning out the garden and preparing it for the winter ahead, I had to pull out a plant that I had nurtured for at least six years.  Years ago, at a local garden center, there were bargain plants in these tiny blue boxes for $0.99.  At the time, I really didn't understand much about gardening and so I thought that I would buy four or five different ones and that would be enough.  I did not know anything about arranging plants or about how far they might spread when they grew, etc. and so forth.  And from that tiny, tiny blue box, eventually, a six foot…
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Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
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Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
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Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
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God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Knowing it in your bones…

If you described my religious identity as a child as, well, confused, you would be generous.  Raised and confirmed Presbyterian, reading the Daily Word from Unity School of Religious Science every morning with my vitamins as I left to school, attending Sunday school at the United Church of Christ, going to Youth Group with my friends at the United Methodist church.  And in the quiet hours of Advent, alone in my room, building what I thought looked like a reasonable approximation of a Catholic altar -- putting a nativity on one side of the dresser and a lit Christmas tree on the other (before you liturgical purists get all up…
Read More

Really Human…

The following were comments delivered as part of our  Christmas 1C service at the Calvary Baptist Church. That first week of Advent, when we began to talk about this movement called Advent Conspiracy seems to me like it was a million years ago.  It certainly was 4 papers, 3 final exams, 2 concerts, and a bout of the flu ago for me personally. So when Amy asked me to talk for a few minutes about my experience of “worshipping fully” in Advent,  well, I panicked.   I was pretty sure that there wasn't anything I had done that fit into a discussion about living a life of worshiping fully during the last month– I slept…
Read More