St. Antony’s Cave

I was raised in the era when the Flag touching the ground was an unforgivable sin.  My time in the Army reinforced this.  When I flew the Flag from the flagpole outside our church the Sunday after 9/11, I was careful not to let it touch the ground.

Among the Greeks and Romans, one of their idols falling over and touching the ground was a big deal, a bad omen, something to be avoided at all costs.  Centuries before them, the Philistine’s god, Dagon, was disgraced when the Lord caused that idol to fall “downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord” (I Samuel 5:3).  My favorite apocryphal story about Baby Jesus’ flight to Egypt is that as soon as He crossed into Egypt all the idols crashed to the ground at once.  How cool!

But I write not about the Flag touching the ground or false gods touching the ground, I write about the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, touching the ground.  Read the rest of this entry »

    One of my favorite apocryphal stories about Jesus goes like this:  Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph are fleeing the wrath of King Herod heading for Egypt. They are all riding on the back of a donkey. Joseph becomes impatient with the slow progress of the beast, and he begins to dig his heels into the animal. This doesn’t do any good, so he resorts to whipping the plodding donkey saying, “You stupid, good for nothing donkey!  Don’t you know that you are carrying the Christ-child? Don’t you realize that Herod is out to slay the child? Don’t you know that you must hurry or he will catch us?” Just then the Lord gives the donkey the gift of speech. Read the rest of this entry »

     In the movie 300, Leonidas is leaving with his small band of men to fight the invading million man army of the Persians.  He bids his wife goodbye. As he marches away to certain death she calls out to him, “Spartan!”  Not “king” which he was but “Spartan.”  His glory is not in ruling but in being a Spartan.

  So it is with pastors.  Our glory is not Read the rest of this entry »

     Driving from Texas to Michigan in December 1977  John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas” seemed to be on all the radio stations.  At that time in my twenty-year-old life Lennon’s melancholy lyrics particularly the line “so this is Christmas, and what have we have done, another year older, and a new one begun,” expressed my understanding of what Christmas was suppose to be.  Read the rest of this entry »

Why do movie studios and NFL football have such majestic musical themes?  Why don’t they have happy little ditties, something with rhythm and toe tapping swing? Read the rest of this entry »

Perusing the church ads in the Austin American Statesman  I noticed a Pentecostal church  advertising, “We’ll give you something to live by.”  People resonate to that. Read the rest of this entry »

 My Dear Absinthe:

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.” That’s a little chuckle we have down here in tribute to your work in the Smith case. Yes, you surely had his heart (and more!) growing fonder for his neighbor. Read the rest of this entry »

Bart Simpson cleared it all up for me.  I’m not a regular watcher of the goggled-eyed little guy but I happened to catch a re-run of a Christmas episode.  Dad, Homer, had only received 13 dollars for a part-time job he had taken to fund the family Christmas.  Being far below what he had expected, he was in despair.  A co-worker suggests that Homer go with him to the local dog track and parley that meager check into a real Christmas bonus.  Bart tries to discourage Homer.  Homer remonstrates.  Bart says something like, ”What the heck.  TV has taught me that at Christmas time I should Read the rest of this entry »

   This being Reformation it’s time once more to haul out the 95 Theses.  Here’s one I’ll bet you haven’t read: Number 7.  It says, “God remits guilt to no one unless at the same time he humbles him in all things and makes him Read the rest of this entry »

   That’s a proverb Luther quotes.  He says what is to be feared is not the trying, difficult, despairing times, but the good times.  The Church has always believed this.  From this sort of theology comes the oft quoted remark, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

   But being a pastor, a shepherd under Christ is tremendously difficult these days.  Who in their right mind would really want to do this? Read the rest of this entry »