In the first hearings addressing the repealing of “Don’t ask; Don’t tell,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it was a matter of integrity to let gays and lesbians openly serve in the military. No, it’s a matter of stupidity. (more…)
Archive for the ‘For Anyone who dares’ Category
It’s a matter of Stupidity
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Even Angels Should Fear to Tread Where God Has
Monday, February 15th, 2010Where Angels Fear to Tread is the title of a 1905 novel my E.M. Forster, but it comes from a line from an Alexander Pope poem from 1707 entitled “An Essay on Criticism.” Pope’s line is more apropos of this post. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” (more…)
Thanksgiving: Not just for Turkeys anymore
Monday, January 18th, 2010I was going to preach this for Thanksgiving but courage didn’t hang with conviction as is often the case with me. (more…)
Food for Thought
Monday, November 9th, 2009A cereal named Ezekiel 4:9 has just shown up on my grocers shelf, and even for a town that prides itself in keeping things weird, this is weird. Here’s what the package says, “As described in Holy Scriptures ‘Take also unto thee wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and spelt and put them in one vessel and make bread of it…..’This Biblical Cereal is truly the Staff of Life.” (more…)
There’s a Bathroom on the Right
Monday, October 26th, 2009A Lutheran woman once told me she grew up thinking the chorus to Creedence Clearwater Revival 1969 hit “Bad Moon Rising” wasn’t “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” but “There’s a bathroom on the right.” I use to think that was because her hearing was poor; I now think it’s because she was a Lutheran. (more…)
Don’t Try this at Home
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
I have never been in favor of the category “Professional Church Worker.” (more…)
Dressing to Confess
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
The Summer 2009 issue of Higher Things has an article entitled “What’s With the Collar?” It makes some fine points favoring the wearing of a clerical collar which I do six days a week, but I am being pushed towards wearing a shirt and tie or perhaps even a black polo shirt with a cross or fish emblem on it. And it’s the laity who is pushing me. Let me explain how. (more…)
Effeminacy and the Liturgy
Monday, July 27th, 2009
Reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I discovered I might not know the real meaning of effeminacy. It doesn’t mean weak or even sissified to the author of that work. (more…)
Acting for God
Monday, June 8th, 2009
“The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us” Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This quote is at the bottom of The Rev. Lowell Michelson May 2009 newsletter article. I find it incredibly ironic. Why? Because The Rev. Lowell Michelson is the ELCA pastor who will one day give an account for the soul of Dr. George Tiller. (more…)
More on Kakistocracy
Monday, May 4th, 2009Kakistocracy is “government by the worst men in the state: opposed to aristocracy” (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 995). I believe in an earlier blog I made mention of this and how I perceived it to be true of all governments democracies and republics included. My view came from Daniel 4:17, “The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, And bestows it on whom He wishes. And sets over it the lowliest of men.” Far from being the best and brightest, it’s the worst and dullest who rule whether they get there by bloodlines or lines at polls. If the cream is rising to the stop, it’s sour cream. Since then, I’ve come upon a Christ-centered view to which I’m drawn. (more…)