The Courage to Disappear

This week’s gospel story depicts two people walking down a road with a stranger who joins them. So happens the stranger is famous, but they don’t recognize him. Like the airplane story, it’s a setup for comedy, but it’s no time for laughter. All three are in the aftermath of trauma, walking away from the scene of public and personal horrors. Primary trauma, suffered directly. Secondary trauma, witnessed and absorbed.

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It is Written

“God hates,” men told her. Many men in fact, many times. Because they were religious, she believed them, because she wished to believe in God. The men held the sacred writings, copied from goat skins to gilded pages to church multimedia screens.

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Skin of the City

In one of my favorite Ted Talks, Educational Technology Specialist Sugata Mitra discusses his experiments with “Hole in the Wall” computers. These are computer kiosks left in Indian slums, among children with no prior contact with PCs. Mitra found that children, by pooling their knowledge and resources, learned how to operate the computers.

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The Word Without A Word

We too live in unstilled worlds. Unto us a child has been born, inarticulate, unable to speak a word – the Word.

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BEEP BEEP BEEP Arggg

In Mark we get a smelly guy yelling – dressed like a nutcase. Right from the opening verses. “Repent!” Literally, “get a different mind!” Wake up!

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Binding and Loosing

In this and similar passages, Jesus doesn’t weigh in on whether he falls in the strict or loose camp. As a rabbi he makes a far more profound move.

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Gospel of Rejects

This gospel of rejects is the “way of salvation” hinted from the early pages of Scripture and revealed fully in Jesus. It’s at work in the world and in us. In our busy-ness building, are we paying attention?

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Formed Among Thorns

Spiritual purgation cleanses and clarifies the true identity into which we are being called and into which we are formed.

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Lent: A Time

I’m personally no good at pausing, in writing or in life. I am in fact behind on everything all the time. My email inbox is crammed and messages are flashing on my phone.

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