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

Me and Karl Barth

I am not a systematic theologian...my friends and acquaintances who love all things systematic have heard me make this proclamation over and over again.  During the course of my seminary education, my Episcopal friends did, however, open my mind and my heart to the idea that the idea of theology as a way of speaking about God was not inherently evil -- although they did not succeed at convincing me that Karl Barth was indeed my friend.    As usual, it took the work of an Old Testament scholar to do that. For the past few weeks, I have been enjoying a class at VTS about the prophetic books of…
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The Storm is Passing Over Part 2…the Meaning of Recovery

I am sitting here at my favorite outdoor table on our last morning in Mexico, writing -- I know I won't be able to post this until days after we get back, definitely after Pentecost.  I've simply been too lazy to take my computer laptop out of its bag and tussle with the wireless network connection.  But I'm enjoying my last bits of tropical trade winds for a while, and the reality that today is the day of Pentecost, well, I just needed to sit and write for just a moment. Pentecost is such an important day in the life of our faith -- it signifies the day when humanity…
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What I’ve Learned So Far….the Graduation Blog

The night we gathered as a graduating class to talk about the work of our Capstone projects and theses was a celebratory one.  Congratulations, hugs, tears...a chance to spend time with our faculty advisers (even though they were in the throws of the final grading needed to get us all to graduation).  And in the midst of that, a friend who had witnessed many times my opening introduction of "I'm not from a diocese, I'm a Baptist" whispered in my ear, "The Episcopal Church welcomes you."   And the Episcopal church did welcome me.  It did not try to convert me, it did not try to change my theology.  Instead,…
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The storm is passing over…

This morning my musical brain is full of the sounds of Charles Tindley's hymn (recast in its popular gospel arrangement), "The Storm is Passing Over" and this is not a random soundtrack for this day.  It is, in fact, a welcome, blessed message from my soul that I have been waiting a long time to hear, a message that as recently as yesterday seemed impossible. You see, yesterday was the one year anniversary of my seizure while travelling in Israel, the first recognizable symptom of the congenital heart valve defect that I had been living with for all these years.  It was the beginning of the long journey through doctors…
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What I’ve learned so far, Part 5: I am an evangelical, but not an Evangelical

One of the great gifts of being a Baptist in an Episcopal world is that these two years have provided me the opportunity to refine my understanding of what I believe and how I live into my faith.   If you had asked me to list what I expected to learn during my months of study before I started, I would never have said these words:  that I would come to a better understand that I am and always have been an evangelical Christian. It turns out that, in light of the events of this week regarding World Vision, this is a very, very important theological understanding to grasp. But here…
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Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
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Today…

Today is my birthday.  We won't discuss how many of those there have been, but it is safe to say that this particular birthday should be special.  It is a birthday that very well might not have happened.  Or certainly might have happened in a very different way than finding me in the midst of my too-too-busy schedule running to that finish line known as graduation. I might not have been here to say:  I'm healthy (even if I can't really say that I'm happy) and moving and exercising and learning and loving and doing all the things that make up a life. And yet, I feel no desire, frankly…
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Circles, lines and time….Christmas Day 7

Yes, I did not write while I was travelling.   Daily writing did serve its purpose -- I was able to get my work done and submitted; so as this year and this time of rest draw to a close, I am picking up the digital pen again, because I have a lot of writing ahead of me these next days and months. To prepare for the work and the new year ahead, I spent my vacation reading a book recommended to me over a year ago -- Receiving the Day by Dorothy C. Bass.  I could not have chosen a more wonderful book to read as I try to wrap my…
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Lions, lambs, cows and bears…Advent 2013 Day 21

Lately, I've been introduced to an interpretative school known as the canonical approach to biblical interpretation.  In the canonical method of reading, the Scripture is treated not as some source document to be picked apart and dissected by scholars of all kind, but as a canon of writings that together talk of the experience of people across the ages as they try to live together in a community of faith. There is much that the scholars can say about this text, as there is most of the text in Isaiah, but sometimes you simply have to surrender to the beauty of the poetry and of the metaphors used to carry…
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With what shall I come before the Lord? Advent 2013 Day 20

Little drummer boys, kings, shepherds -- on that night of nights they all ask the question that each and everyone of us asks with every moment that we draw breath as part of God's creation (whether or not we know we ask):  with what shall I come before the Lord... “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin…
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