Singing Along the Journey
Thoughts about faith and wholeness set to the soundtrack of life

It’s all gone with the wind…and that’s okay

Greetings from Atlanta and the 28th Annual Alliance of Baptists Festival Gathering.  Please excuse the title...it will all become clear later, I hope; but I could not resist the opportunity to use those famous words from this place. I've been here since Wednesday evening, attending sessions on pastoral care and christian formation with 400+ of my progressive baptist friends at this year's conference, poetically named, "We've a Story to Hear from the Nations."  Last night, we were blessed to gather with Paco Rodes of the Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba and to worship with beautiful Cuban music; tonight we will invite God in with the words of Rusudan Gotsiridze…
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A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
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A Holy Saturday Meditation: When the Sun Refused to Shine…

This morning the light dawned after the sadness and fear of Good Friday, but our hearts are sore as we remember the crucified body of Jesus lies in the tomb.  That is the meaning of this day in Holy Week, known as Holy Saturday, a day of unknowing tears that will end, I am told, with the great Easter vigil and our first knowledge of the Resurrection.  I am looking forward to participating in my first Easter Vigil tonight, an ecumenical version sponsored by St. Mark's Episcopal Church here in DC and including members of many denominational churches in the area. Right now, though, I'm thinking about everything we heard…
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A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
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A Good Friday Meditation, Part 1: Sorrow and Love Flow Mingled Down

Last Sunday, Palm Sunday, as Christians everywhere entered into the annual act of remembrance that is known as Holy Week, I was singing with the choir at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria, VA.   The music was lovely, the choir very, very good, and the sermon meaningful, but what stuck with me through this week of preparation and searching and devotion was the offertory anthem we sang.  It was not some famous work or some especially difficult piece -- it was just a Hal Hopson arrangement of that most famous of famous hymn texts by Isaac Watts, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross."  The words were so familiar,…
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A Nostalgic Kind of Holy Day…

I find myself, each Maundy Thursday, feeling, well -- nostalgic.   Yes,  I am moved deeply by the invitation to walk alongside Jesus through this most difficult and yet most glorious part of his story and our story together.   This day, however, forms an intricate piece of my own story as a person and as a disciple, one of those places where my own story intersects with the story of the Christ in unusual ways. Let's go back to the beginning --  my own beginning, that is.  You see, my parents had a difficult relationship with the idea of church after the death of my brother.  My earliest memories…
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Who are you, anyway: our chaotic, blessed stories…

I had the opportunity to attend a luncheon in support of the work at Jubilee Housing last Tuesday and to learn about their amazing work providing affordable housing and social support to people of all ages and stages in the District of Columbia.  A couple of very dear friends invited me; I had the chance to catch up with other friends while I was there, learning about an organization that walks the walk of its social justice beliefs. The program showcased the lives and stories of some of the residents at Jubilee properties; they told the story of how a safe, stable, affordable home (something very expensive to attain in…
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Who are you anyway: the beginning of a thought…

Lately, my thoughts are consumed with the idea of identity.  Perhaps it is a mid-life crisis brought on by my recent birthday; perhaps it is simply that I sit at one of those crossroads in life where my choices would be best served by a good solid dose of self-knowledge.  Or, maybe it is the season -- this season of holy reflection that was the time when I decided to take yet another ecumenical change of dance steps and become a member of a Baptist community.  Whatever the reason for the feeling, the feeling is palpable and will not be denied -- it is time to seriously ponder the idea…
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What I’ve Learned so Far…Learning is Fundamental

I am sitting here at my desk on a frigid bright morning, missing a class on Genesis 22 because of car fires and accidents on the highway that takes me out to the seminary.  My brain and my soul are still full from last night's discussion of the Holiness Code and its role in the land promises of the Pentateuch.  And, if I haven't lost you already in the face of this biblical techno-speak, I would point out to you what might not be obvious -- I GRADUATED IN MAY.  WHY AM I TAKING TWO BIBLICAL STUDIES CLASSES? Because, my friends, over the past months, I have understood some important…
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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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