Our world can encourage entitlement. Sometimes we feel we are “owed” something. This can lead to pride in some cases and taken to the extreme can lead to what we call “narcissism”. We may feel like we don’t deserve anything. The opposite is sometimes we feel like we don’t deserve anything. To the We…

Things are not as they always seem. Sometimes what we see doesn’t at first make sense to us. This is especially true if we are unfamiliar with a practice of another culture or person. We need to live integrated lives. This is part of what James has been teaching us. As we gather into Holy Week, and I…

We all need hope. Where is your hope? What gives you hope? How do you gain hope? Hope is a very powerful. It is essential for all of life, if you ask me, and you didn’t but oh well. :D James wants to remind us of our true hope. As we come to the end of the book of James we must realize these final verses…

Life is fragile and short. We know this to be true and we, or at least I, do not like to be reminded of this. Our prayer list is filled with reminders of the fragility of life. Also the shortness of life. How will we be different during unexpected moments? To some extent this is the question of James.…

We were created for community. Adam was not created to be alone, this is one of the reasons Eve was created. Together male and female we are created in the image of God. Some have argued God himself lives in community through the Trinity; and with humans and the supernatural. Community is powerful. Over…

We enter the time to plant. As Winter is close to leaving us, maybe and only God knows, we enter Spring. We are seeing the signs of spring all around us: the crocuses, daffodils and other “early risers” are making their way up. If you want a harvest you must plant good seed. Not any seed will do, to…

Two major issues: speech and power. They sometimes go hand in hand and sometimes they do not. We are fortunate we have, at least right now, the freedom of speech. Yet, it is not uncommon for those in power to try and restrict speech and conversation. Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute…

Words matter. Not only does what we say matter but how we use a word matters. Which word we use matters in every day life. We talked about this last week and some of us have been having a little fun with things. Words can be complicated. Especially in the English language. The example of red and read.…

We all like to comfortable. To some extent we try our best to seek comfort, sometimes at all cost. Yet, comfort and the expressions thereof is fairly recent. Historically the only ones which would afforded “comfort” were of a certain social status. The concept of pews and the “wooden boxes”. Church and…

The number ranges from 7,000-10,000 daily: What am I? Stop and think about this for a minute. Kids and teens think through this. Answer: words spoken per day. Granted this is an “average” and it would not be uncommon for those whose jobs center on speaking to be close to 14,000 or more. Now this as indicated…