Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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Dead or Alive?
Are you dead or alive? Alive people are awake and aware—they’re open to the whole of human life. They’re open to receive all the gifts and joys and exquisite delights of human life—and they’re just as open to receive the suffering and the disappointment and the sadness. They can sit with that, too, and…
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The Three Days’ Wait
The message of Easter is very simple. When something dies, bury it. Then walk away, let it be. The Bible says three days—let it be for three days. That’s how long Jesus was in the tomb. That’s how long Jonah was buried in the belly of the sea monster. “Three days” is biblical language for…
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Passion and Passivity
Palm Sunday is also known as the Sunday of the Passion, and since we’re big into passion (as in “What are you passionate about?”) we might assume that this is the moment when Jesus gets really charged up and busy doing a lot of incredible things. Passion comes from the Latin “passio” which means “suffering,”…
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The Last Family Fight
We just don’t argue anymore. I spent the weekend with my six brothers and sisters—along with all our husbands and wives, except for my brother-in-law Larry in Kuwait. We were in Knoxville for a late celebration of my father’s 94th birthday. And we didn’t argue or fight. Which is saying something in this family. Twenty…
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Personal Sequester
The most remarkable thing about the sequester crisis in Washington is that the whole “problem” is self-caused. Our leaders designed a terrible Sword of Damocles that would drop and half-kill the country unless we worked together to find a sensible way forward. Then they refused to work together to find a sensible way forward. Now…
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Twenty Four Tributes: For My Father Turning 94
On Saturday my father, Gerald Anderson, turned 94. My brother wrote a birthday email and copied all seven of us siblings and all the in-laws. He ended by listing five gifts that Dad has passed on to all of us. 1. That you know yourself to be loved by God, 2. That you have lived in…
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The Lantern Never Lies
On the odyssey of life we need some way of knowing where we are, and whether we’re headed the right direction. In English, to be “oriented” is to know where east is. Historically, church buildings are situated so that the altar is on the east wall, and almost always a window opens to receive the…
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Twelve Months to Live
Some years ago I was enjoying a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, when a parishioner came to me and said, “I want you to meet a friend.” I could see a woman with white hair sitting at her table. We walked over, I shook her hand and said, “Hello, my name is David Anderson.” She said,…