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Thursday 29th November 2012
Over the Moon About the Moon (& a Video For You!)
I’ve been over the moon about the moon this week. It started with that full moon rising, and the striking realization that a young Nazarene named Jesus would have beheld that very same moon we see. And then, a friend told me that Buzz Aldrin served himself communion on the surface of the ...
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Monday 22nd October 2012
I Stand Amazed in the Presence
It happens like this, on those Sunday mornings when the cup is poured. I don’t think she can help it. She tries not to cry. I know it, because she’s my dearest friend on the planet. She is up at the front of the church, facing all of us with that golden chalice in her... Read More
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Monday 30th April 2012
First Communion: What Forgiveness Tastes Like
Every Sunday, we recite creeds. We say we believe in the communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. For years now, I’ve let my belief roll off my tongue — not just rote, but real. And on this cool spring morning, I found ...
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Monday 12th March 2012
The Significance of One
The pastor cups bread in his hands when he tells us this: A single loaf of bread contains 23,810 tiny grains of wheat. And those grains of wheat come from 63 million acres in the U.S. each year. “I wonder, if any of those grains of wheat feel insignificant,” he asks. Would anyone ...
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Monday 21st February 2011
Broken and Poured Out
I lift the wine bottle to the lip of a pottery cup. A torrent of flowing ruby fills the reservoir, and I know there are people who would grimace at what we’re about to do. Strange, they say. Even cannibalistic. My mind flips through the gold-lined pages, lands on red letters in John 6. ...
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Friday 16th October 2009
Why Hamburgers Won’t Taste the Same Anymore
They were filing into pews when someone realized what we’d forgotten: communion bread and grape juice. We had come to this Iowa sanctuary on a Saturday morning to take communion. This was how we would prepare ourselves — through His body and blood — before beginning a day of ...
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Tuesday 18th August 2009
The Gift and The Giver
The presents were lined in front of the birthday girl — bags and boxes filled with games, books and new pajamas. On one child’s face: delight.On the other face: envy. “Mommy,” Anna asked, lower lip quivering, “Did I get that many gifts at my birthday? I think Lydia ...
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Friday 10th April 2009
It’s Friday. “But God…”
I don’t want to stand here, at the foot of the cross. Standing in the stench of my own sin, now pooling in red, and watching Someone else pay the price for it. The blood, the torture, the gory figure on an executioner’s cross. And then these haunting words from Jesus: “Eloi, ...
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Wednesday 1st April 2009
Come As You Are
I needed cups: 35 of them. Each one different from the other. I searched the china cupboard and found a goblet given as a wedding gift. I grabbed my favorite wine glass, then another standing beside it: a handpainted gift from a friend. I retrieved a child’s yellow smiley-face cup, and a ...
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Tuesday 24th March 2009
Vignettes of an Urban Plunge
I returned home Sunday night from a short mission trip called “Urban Plunge,” where rural folks like me plunge headlong into the reality of urban suffering, a mere three hours from our doorsteps. On the streets of Omaha, Neb., I witnessed the beauty of irony among the homeless, the ...
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Holding the Story
For the High Calling: “I had over-yessed myself.”