A parable of the atonement

Here's a sermon illustration for you, if there ever was one. How does God execute justice and show redeeming love at the same time? This story might give you an inkling. 

Er, Sorry ... !?

Anne Lamott's new book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers seems to overlook one that has been rather important for those of the Presbyterian/Reform tradition. It goes like this: Sorry.

A quick search — yes, I confess I have not read what looks like a "quick read" book, only the free excerpts ... sorry! — shows the word only occurs twice in the book (once sarcastically, so that doesn't count). "Forgiveness" occurs once, "forgive" twice, "repent" once (but she soon retracts it). So, evidently "Sorry" is not a major theme, neither does it (for Lamott) constitute an essential prayer.

Lamott is a witty writer who evokes a lot of sympathy (I'm truly sorry about her cat, and the serial human losses she endures), and I don't wish to detract from what she has to say about Help or Thanks or Wow. But when it comes to what we consider "the essential," shouldn't the "Reform" tradition in the age of Twitter expect just a bit more — if only five more titular keystrokes — of its leading literary lights? 

Englewood Review of Books

Note the link added here, and at right, to the Englewood Review of Books.

Tribute

Just a wee addendum to my earlier series on Music for the Pastor's Study: I am thoroughly enjoying this CD from Steve Hackett, entitled Tribute. One of his best, most consistently contemplative, in a long time. Lots of great material for exegetical brooding!

Hieropraxis

Hieropraxis is another cool website worth exploring. Subtitled "literature and faith, truth and beauty," it's a forum for a half-dozen or so astute poets and creative scholars from diverse backgrounds, but with an apologetic bent.

UPDATE: Link added at right.

Just ruminating ...

So, having cancelled my subscriptions to just about everything a while back, ... and having added back a journal or two (I have a soft spot for Journal for Preachers and Interpretation), I subscribed to Ruminate the other day. A visually cool journal of poetry, short stories, etc., it operates from an intentionally Christian worldview, without being all ... "you know" ... about it. (How's that for a deft choice of words?) Who knows? Perhaps some sympathetic ruminant will review my nifty new volume, The Just Quiet Wind.

UPDATE: Link to Ruminate added at right.

"Sing to the Lord a new song"

Among the many challenges Year D presents, beyond the sermonic, is the fact that so many hymnals and songbooks overlook these texts as well. Search through the scripture index of your denomination's hymnal, and the odds are that, if the text is not in the lectionary, neither is it going to appear in your lectionary-based hymnal.

One of the wonderful things about the liturgical history of the church, however, is the fact that preachers who may not have had any particularly outstanding musical gifts, when they put their minds and pens to it, came up with some great hymns and spiritual songs, sometimes a tune, sometimes a lyric or psalm paraphrase, and in certain cases both.

Wouldn't it be cool if a gaggle of Christian songwriters, or a flock of shepherds, so to speak, applied themselves to the challenge of writing new hymns and songs based on Year D texts? Yeah, I think so, too. I say, go for it.

The Just, Quiet Wind

The Just, Quiet Wind is a little volume of my poems, mostly from 1994 to 2002, with a few recent editorial modifications, all but two of which are published here for the first time (on CreateSpace). The pensive, playful reader will find these imaginative, evocative poems, inspired by texts from the Revised Common Lectionary (Year B), distinctly beyond the liturgical pale, yet just as clearly within conversational proximity to the Scriptures that set them in motion.