My former boss and friend (which is better than a boss and former friend), Bishop Hee-Soo Jung spoke frequently about the “grace margin.” I first encountered this term in the 1970s when I studied Jurgen Moltmann and adopted the theology of hope as my core vision for the Christian life. […]
Due to a bad phone connection and a weird transcription, I got a voice mail from someone named Mewe Usthem (Mary Austin). At first I simply laughed at the transpositioning and transposing, but the more I thought about it, this name – Mewe Usthem – could be a metaphor for […]
Why do conspiracies always have to be darkly subversive or negative? One origin of the term “conspire” is “to breathe with,” or “to breathe together.” What if we were to form a positive, enduring conspiracy for the common good? What might we conspire together to create or achieve? I am […]
There is a linguistic condition called disfluency that is characterized by disruptions in speech — long pauses, uhms, urrs, likes, and simply allowing sentences and thoughts drift away in unfinished forms. In its strongest forms (often referred to as dysfluency) it is an inability to articulate complete thoughts and concepts. […]
A woman from northern Wisconsin engaged me in an email exchange about recent posts I have written (as well as an old post against gun violence), challenging my thinking (hopefully in positive and productive ways). She raises four points (with which I disagree, and will attempt to explain here): Negativity […]
Hope is under siege. Corporate media, social media, party politics, populism, and mass marketing are all undermining and denigrating hope. Hopelessness is the flavor of the day. Wildfires burn at hope, floods inundate hope, pandemic infects hope, politicians mock hope, and corporate America redefines hope as hunger, greed, and dissatisfaction […]
When it happens to you or someone you care about, it becomes a completely different story. I got a phone call from an old frenemy, a very conservative colleague from my Nashville days, who I sparred with on every social, cultural, and political issue raised during the Clinton/W. Bush years. […]
My little pun title works on three levels: 1) a small portion of unappetizing food, 2) issued in times of war, and 3) the word ration used to mean “reason.” So, I am offering a small morsel of thought to a church at war with itself, that offers a slightly […]
When I was a teenager, my cross country coach took us up to the Indiana Dunes and had us run sprints up the white sand dunes. Not only was it painful and exhausting then, but almost everyone I ran with (literally) in those days developed chronic ankle/knee/hip/back problems over the […]
Emerging from a global pandemic, many people feel that life has been happening to them, rather than them feeling any strong sense of control over their own lives. Yet, even when external conditions are in seismic upheaval, we still have control over our responses. We make choices all the time […]
United Methodeviations 