by David Anderson
First in a Lenten Series How did I miss this? I’ve been reading this Ash Wednesday gospel for decades. Same every year. Matthew 6. Sermon on the Mount. Yet when I heard it this year, I was struck by what seemed the most obvious, pressing, urgent message of Jesus’ address. It’s the word secret. I […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
I’m not a big fan of “inclusion.” I’m very much for widening the circle of love and embrace, but “inclusion” has been sloganized by liberal Protestants until it means something like vague acceptance. The ideal includers are people with a coat hanger smile who just love everybody! And if that’s what it takes to be […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
The rationalists used to be able to laugh at us believer-types, when we stood together and confessed our belief in “all things visible and invisible.” That was before astronomers and physicists discovered “dark matter.” When we look up at the moon and the stars we assume we are seeing all there is in the universe. […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
I parked my car in New York last night and came back to find a leaflet jammed into my door handle. I looked down the street; every car had been hit. I saw a picture of the pope and figured it was just an overeager Catholic blanketing the neighborhood with tracts. I opened it and […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
You’ve seen that bumper sticker, “Wise men still seek him.” It’s true, just not in the way the driver of the car imagines. If Epiphany is to lead you to the Light, you must know that the global story of foreign kings traversing “field and fountain, moor and mountain” in search of the Light is […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
The human being is capable of great idealism . . . and great delusion, as these resolutions humorously attest. Resolution #1 2015: I will try to be a better husband to Marge. 2016: I will not leave Marge. 2017: I will try for a reconciliation with Marge. 2018: I will try to be a better […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
There was an outdoor orchestra concert in New York and the featured piece of music began with a far off trumpet–a distant, clarion call that set the tone for the whole symphony. In rehearsals the conductor moved the trumpeter to the farthest edge of the stage, and then further into the wings. Still, he wasn’t […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized
Back when my two daughters were listening to Green Day, 98 Degrees and Blink 182, they had all the feelings surging through that music–anxiety, excitement, pouty anger, self-consciousness and of course an enormous need to be loved. Pop music gave voice to all those inexpressible feelings. As a father I often felt helpless to reach […]
by David Anderson 10 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized