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2003 ! 2004 !
2005 | 2006
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2007
 |
Password for Prayer - August 1, 2007
We even have passwords for prayer. Devout people assure me that any
prayer uttered in the name of Jesus Christ will always be answered.
God has promised that, they insist. But no other password will do. I
don't believe that any more. I'm not sure I ever did. |
|
Two-Wheeled Stability - July 25, 2007
In the journal Proceedings of the Royal
Society, a conclusive mathematical account of bike riding is
described in a dense 28-page paper by Professor Andy Ruina of Cornell
University, Jim Papadopoulos of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Jaap Meijaard of
Nottingham University, and Prof Arend Schwab of Delft University of
Technology, the Netherlands |
| Another Meeting -
July 18, 2007
For efficiency in decision making, you want the smallest feasible
group. For building a community vision, you need the biggest,
involving a maximum number of people. |
| What We're
Listening for - July 11, 2007
Prayer is supposed to be a conversation too, I'm told.
Maybe we don't listen hard enough for what God isn't saying, though |
|
Embodied Words - July
4, 2007
It's one reason I believe in what Christianity calls the
Incarnation. God ceased being an abstract idea, a distant idea in the
sky, and became a real human being. |
| Ten
Commandments for Drivers - June 23, 2007
The Vatican's fifth commandment states: Cars shall not be an
expression of power and domination... Which is exactly how many people
use their cars. |
|
True Believers - June
20, 2007
Beliefs are, at their root, an emotional response to life experience.
Beliefs assure us that we play a meaningful role in the universe –
even if the universe itself is meaningless. |
|
Fifty Years Ahead - June 13, 2007
Unless religious institutions – be they Christian, Muslim, or Hindu –
can offer something distinctly different from all the other choices
available, they will inevitably suffer attrition. |
| Seeking Epiphanies
- June 6, 2007
the satisfaction of pleasing those who are already on
side pales compared to that moment of epiphany when a reader or hearer
gains a new insight. |
| Speaking of Nothing -
May 30, 2007
According to the Ten Commandments, it seems, the only way to think of
the divine is to think of nothing. Maybe zero isn't so insignificant
after all. |
|
Who You Talk To - May 23, 2007
The truth often depends on who you talk to. You'll get quite a
different story from Jews in Jerusalem, than from Palestinians in
Gaza. |
|
Contradictions - May
16, 2007
Biblical literalists tie their intestines in a knot trying to
rationalize these apparent contradictions into a single consistent
system of beliefs. They have trouble accepting that different contexts
may have called for different answers. |
|
A Cure for
Apathy - May 9, 2007
Churches are dying wherever they concentrate on keeping
their coffins comfortably well-upholstered. |
|
Reaching for Infinity - May
2, 2007
Perhaps I'm in a minority.
But I see nothing to prevent us finite creatures from reaching for
infinity. |
|
Old
Habits and Bread - April 25, 2007
Are churches like museums, the place we store things we no longer use
but find interesting to visit on occasion? |
|
15 Minutes Late - April 18, 2007
One congregation I know starts every service
with 15 minutes of "Praise" choruses to attract younger worshippers.
My friends make sure they arrive 15 minutes late. |
| Reassurance -
April 11, 2007
Romantic paintings that show Jesus serenely surveying
the countryside from an elevated viewpoint, while women picnic near
his feet, distort reality. |
| Property - April 4,
2007
Every morning, a male flicker hooks himself onto the
side of my house and pounds out his mating call. He hammers his beak
against my cedar siding, my eavestroughs, even my chimney top.
|
| Dumbing Down God -
March 28, 2007
God—whatever that word means—is too big even for adult
minds to grasp with certainty, too important to be dumbed down. |
| Reality is Not the
Final Word - March 21, 2007
Abolition of slavery demanded 17 centuries. But it did happen. If a
vision is powerful enough, if enough people share the vision, the
vision can create a new reality |
| Bald Spots - March
14, 2007
He picked one girl up, and sat her on his shoulder. "What do you see"?
he asked her. "Bald spots", Sonja replied delightedly. Laughter
rippled through the congregation. |
|
Between
Sleeping and Waking - March 7, 2007
According to legend, Siddhartha Gautama, the prince who
became the Buddha, spent six years seeking enlightenment. |
|
Ogopogo,
Santa, and Jesus - Thoughts on Harmless Deceptions - February 28, 2007
Only when stories get
stamped with the imprimatur of Holy Writ do we start teaching children
to take legends literally. |
|
Excellence
in Living - February 21, 2007
Do you ever get the feeling that if what you're doing
doesn't qualify for some kind of an award, it's not worth trying? |
|
Valentine's
Day Dreams - February 14, 2007
Valentine's Day ain't what it used to be. Once upon a time, if I
dreamed about being naked, I was probably having an erotic dream. Not
any more. |
|
Smiling
Communities - February 7, 2007
Left to myself, I could probably get all too frustrated with the
shortcomings of any congregation. Or, for that matter, any social
organization |
|
Unthinking Faith - January 31, 2007
For some people, the attraction of a political
party, a labor union, or a religious faith is that they can let
someone else do their thinking for them. |
|
Cause and Effect -
January 24, 2007
I wonder if some of us ever really get beyond a two-year-old level of
reasoning, when we don't want to. |
|
Intoxicating
Religion - January 17, 2007
Language without poetry is dead. So is religion without
imagination. |
|
Flawed Analogies -
January 10, 2007
Dark is passive; light is active. You cannot turn on a
dark that will drive away the light. You can only turn off a light,
and leave darkness in its absence. |
|
Experiencing the Holy - January 3, 2007
Early in the last century, German theologian Rudolf Otto coined the
word numinous for spiritual experience. I prefer the term awe. |
2006
| Warmed Hearts -
December 27, 2006
My heart feels strangely warmed that two elderly -- and by the
standards of their time, socially useless -- people could perform a
role that warmed parents' hearts |
|
Winter
Solstice - December 20, 2006
At dawn on the winter solstice, when the sun is at its
lowest in the winter sky, the rising sun penetrates right to the end
of that tunnel, to illuminate the floor of a cross-shaped chamber |
|
Between
the Extremes - December 13, 2006
Perhaps everything consists of polarities. The truth
lies somewhere on the continuum between two extremes – but it's only
those contradictory extremes that make the continuum evident to us. |
|
Christmas -
the Core of the Story - December 6, 2006
Most traditional theology limits God to a single Incarnation, in the
person of the infant Jesus, the Messiah (Hebrew) or the Christ
(Greek). But I'm not willing to limit God. |
| Self-Answering
Questions - November 29, 2006
if God is good, and God created everything, how can there be evil in
the world? Did a good God create evil? The academic name for this
question, by the way, is "theodicy." |
|
Jesus
in the Penthouse - November 22, 2006
There's a truth in the evangelical mantra – we do need
to be born again. Not just once, though, but constantly. To prevent us
from assuming that a privileged position is a right. |
|
What Kind of God -
November 15, 2006
I want to know, what kind of God deliberately inflicts pain and
suffering? I'll tell you -- the kind of God I thought I had outgrown.
The kind of God who plays favourites |
| Stupid Wars -
November 8, 2006
This Remembrance Day weekend, hundreds of editorials and thousands of
sermons will praise those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. They gave
their lives for a cause. |
| Out of Chaos -
November 1, 2006
Out of chaos came order – Perhaps that was our need. And we told the
story of Genesis to validate our own compulsion to organize. |
|
On Being
Vulnerable - October 25, 2006
Writing a book is not a shortcut to glory. It's more
like an exercise in vulnerability. |
|
This is Why
We Bother - October 18, 2006
If you don't speak up for others when you're not
personally threatened, you can't expect others to speak up for you
when you are. |
|
Permanent
Punishment - Oct.11, 2006
Unfortunately, the concept of getting rid of the bad
guys is entrenched in most of our religious beliefs. The good will
eventually go to heaven; the bad will go to hell |
| Wine Tasting -
October 4, 2006
a woman described the many people who
had intervened helpfully in her life… "But," she said, "those were all
people. I don't see how God was involved at all." |
|
Saints and
Sinners - September 27, 2006
To think of myself as a sinner because I miss the mark is to penalize
me for making the effort to hit the mark. And not even the saints hit
the mark all the time. |
| More Than a
Birdbrain - September 20, 2006
I had a conversation with a crow earlier this year. A crow named Betty
is the only non-human creature known to have invented a tool. |
|
Universal
Unity - September 13, 2006
What matters is not the means of achieving that altered
state of consciousness, but the awareness – and the awe – of
discovering universal unity. |
| The End of the
World - September 6, 2006
The end of the world will come September 3, next
year. I figured it out, myself. |
|
Recycling
Myself - August 30, 2006
Why should we expect a single state of mind, a single snapshot of
experience, to last indefinitely? Does a pendulum stop at the end of
its swing? |
| Learning New Skills
- August 23, 2006
Granddaughter Katherine is visiting us this week.
(Daughter Sharon came along as parental servant.) |
|
Personality Disorders - August 16, 2006
Reduce any of the famous Seven Deadly Sins a little,
take them down from an extreme, and they often become virtues. |
|
Living
Dangerously - August 9, 2006
Perhaps there's no such thing in human life as pure altruism. And
perhaps that's okay. The Dalai Lama sometimes speaks of pure altruism
as the highest virtue |
| The Holiest
Place - August 2, 2006
Name the world's holiest place. Most Christians and all Jews would
probably say Jerusalem. Muslims also consider Jerusalem a sacred site,
surpassed only by Mecca and Medina. But a good case can be made for
Axum Ethiopia. |
| Travel Rules -
July 26, 2006
Jim's Rules of International Travel |
| The March of Saints -
July 19, 2006
I came back from Ireland with a new appreciation for saints. I grew up
with rigidly protestant presumptions about saints.
Lesser Wrongs -
July 12, 2005
If someone died or were left permanently disabled
because I took the time to obey every jot and tittle of the highway
regulations on my way to the hospital, I would feel guilty for the
rest of my life. |
|
Moving On, Growing Up - July 5, 2006
So why should we assume that what we were told about God, way back in
Sunday school, was the ultimate truth? It was a beginning, a launching
pad, a stepping stone. To move ahead means leaving that stepping stone
behind. |
| Just a Good Kid -
June 28, 2006
Our daily newspaper carried a story recently about a 21-year-old man
who had been under house arrest for theft and fraud. "He's a good
kid," said the suspect's father. |
| Thin Places - June
21, 2006
And so I am currently in Ireland, looking for what Celtic Christians
called “thin places” - places where the veil that hides God from us
(or us from God) becomes less opaque. |
| Time To Go - June
14, 2006
I found myself clinging to those people, those colleagues, those
friends, as if I never wanted to let them go. But it was time. For
them, and for me |
| On Eagle's wings
- June 7, 2006
His followers are a mixed bag. At their best, they still take the side
of the victim. But far too many still bow their heads toward the
imperial eagle. |
| God's Companionable
Silence - May 31, 2006
I've written in previous columns about my own prayer life, or lack of
it, but from some responses I've received, I suspect that many today
find God conspicuous by his or her absence. |
| Real-life Survivors
- May 24, 2006
I gave up watching the TV series
Survivor several years ago. They call it a “reality” show. It's anything
but reality. If you want a reality show about survivors, talk to senior
citizens |
|
Endless Subdivisions -
May 17, 2006
Growth has come to our little rural community. Other people want what
I have had for the last 12 years. And the only way they can get it is
to bulldoze roads, cut down trees, level the hills, and build
five-bedroom stucco mansions with three-car garages |
|
The
Invisible Audience - May 10, 2006
I usually assumed that religious people had to have an active prayer
life. I have tried to have one, but always failed. I've tried taking
time out during the day; I get preoccupied with deadlines. |
| Fixed Focus - May
3, 2006
Why, then, would we cling to a belief that God must be unchanging? I
prefer to find terms that mean more to me, at my stage of life. A
friend referred to the unfurling of the seasons as an “endless
miracle.” That concept appeals to me much more than “unchanging.” |
|
Centre of
the Universe - April 26, 2006
Since Galileo, we know intellectually that the universe
doesn't revolve around our planet, let alone around us as individuals.
But emotionally, we still see ourselves in the middle. |
|
Bright
Yellow flowers - April 19, 2006
But if it comes to one extreme or another, I can't help
feeling that the planet as a whole might be better off with no humans
than with nothing but humans. Earth Day is April 22. Think about it. |
|
Crosses and Resurrections - April 12, 2006
The once-and-for-all-time Resurrection that Christians
celebrate on Easter Morning doesn't mean much to me. Nothing I do can
affect it – I am essentially irrelevant. |
|
Redemptive
Violence - April 5, 2006
The truth of the story doesn’t depend who did what, but that in the
end love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, and
that the power of evil can never conquer the potential for good. |
| Sun Worship -
March 29, 2006
But most religions soon moved beyond sun worship, and
visualized a superior deity whom even the sun obeyed. In the
magnificent poem that opens the biblical book of Genesis, Jewish
theologians imagined a divinity who created not just the sun but the
whole universe |
|
Meditation
on Spring - March 22, 2006
From the womb of nothingness, light and warmth emerged.
And in the light and the warmth were day and night,
and in light and warmth lay the possibility of life.
And the possibility was pleased. |
| Giving Up Griping -
March 15, 2006
All progress ground to a halt as meetings disintegrated into whining
sessions. “'I'm very sorry,' I was forced to apologize on several
occasions.' I gave up grumbling, griping, and whining of any kind for
Lent. I'd love to join you in this conversation, but I'm afraid it's
against my religion." |
| Stupidity Tests -
March 8, 2006
And when the religious tenets we have
taken for granted for so long come under fire, we tend to cling to
them more and more obstinately. We attack anyone who challenges us to
re-think doctrines we have long taken for granted |
| Doing Without -
March 1, 2006
Perhaps you can infer that I'm skeptical about traditional Lenten
practices? You see, I do not believe that God wants us to be
miserable. I do not believe that God wants us to suffer for our own
good. I do not believe that God punishes us by inflicting disease and
death upon us |
|
Babies and
Bathwater - February 22, 2006
A friend worries that in the current religious ferment we may be
“throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” In fact, we're keeping a
lot more than we're challenging. We just find it harder to name the
important things we're keeping. |
| Model Behaviour
- February 15, 2006
If there is such a thing as original sin, it wasn't
eating an apple. The sin was our decision to sacrifice God's world and
our own better instincts to the insatiable demands of our own
creations. |
|
Battling
Complacency - February 8, 2006
I would love to settle back into the hot tub of complacency, to leave
the battles for justice, for equality, for sustainable environments
and communities, to younger people. But... |
|
Waves and
Beaches - February 1, 2006
Some experiences that you thought would destroy you, don't. Other
situations catch you by surprise. They whack you between the shoulder
blades when you thought you were in calm water |
| Can The Son of
God Have Grandparents? - January 25, 2006
Her son and daughter-in-law live
about four hours away. She hardly ever sees her grandchildren; she
feels unwelcome in her daughter-in-law's home. |
|
Bargaining
Points - January 18, 2006
A few
months ago, Joan and I made a decision. We picked about 20 causes and
charities. I wrote those organizations a letter. I promised that we
would send them at least one contribution a year. In return, we asked
them to quit sending us mail |
| Out of
Sync with Society - January 11, 2006
But why, I then start to wonder,
should I presume that a person who's friendly enough to start chatting
with a stranger must have something wrong with him? |
|
Both Sides Now - January 4, 2006
These discoveries incline me to amend Newton's Third Law of Motion to
say, Every action has at least two related but opposing reactions.” |
|
Passing the Baton - December 28, 2005 |
|
The Hitchhiker's
Nativity - December 14, 2005 |
|
Open to the
Unexpected - December 7, 2005 |
| Sex
Appeal - November 30, 2005 |
|
Underestimating
Animals - November 23, 2005 |
|
The Power of the Non-Vote -November 16, 2005 |
| No
One Wins a War - November 9, 2005 |
|
Paving Paradise - November 2, 2005 |
|
When We Need Handles - October 26, 2005 |
|
For the Journey - October 19, 2005 |
| Not So
Funny - October 12, 2005 |
|
Carbon Copies - October 5, 2005 |
|
Discerning Meaning -
September 28, 2005 |
|
Little Blue Flowers
of Kindness - September 21, 2005 |
| What
Makes it Christian? - September 14, 2005 |
|
Boiled Frogs - September 7, 2005 |
|
Forbidding Fruit - August 31, 2005 |
|
Different Way of
Worship - August 24, 2005 |
|
Someone Else's Life -
August 17, 2005 |
|
Learning the Moves - August 10, 2005 |
|
Sacrificial Mothers
- August 3, 2005 |
|
Mental Prisons - July 27, 2005 |
| In
Our Element - July 20, 2005 |
|
Horoscopes and their Ilk - July 13, 2005 |
|
Vertical Transit - July 6, 2005 |
| Weeding
Life's Garden - June 29, 2005 |
|
Life Without Labels - June 22, 2005 |
| On Time -
June 15, 2005 |
|
Slow and Steady - June 8, 2005 |
|
Conversations
with God - June 1, 2005 |
| A
Handle on Life - May 25, 2005 |
| Those
Dear Damn Deer - May 18, 2005 |
|
Revealing Celebrations - May 11, 2005 |
| The
Decline and Fall of May Day - May 4, 2005 |
| God's
Doorknobs - April 27, 2005 |
|
Growing Pains - April 20, 2005
Heavenly
Grandparent - April 13, 2005 |
| Continuing
Value - April 6, 2005 |
|
Darkest Before the
Dawn - March 30, 2005 |
| the
Absence of God - March 23, 2005 |
|
Everyone Loves a Parade - March 16, 2005 |
|
Language Differences - February 16, 2005 |
|
Herald of New Life - February 9, 2005 |
|
Burdened by Tradition - February 2, 2005 |
| Why Not?
- January 26, 2005 |
|
Foolhardy Actions - January 19, 2005
Shepherds for Lost Logs - January 12, 2005 |
|
Learning Curves - January 5, 2005 |
|
|
Much Ado About Sex - June 30, 2004 |
| Homely
Resurrections - May 26, 2004 |
| Cultural
Diversity - May 19, 2004 |
| Youthful
Rebellion - May 12, 2004 |
| Tea
on Tap - May 5, 2004 |
| Monkeying
Around - April 28, 2004 |
| Reforming
and Restoring - April 14, 2004 |
| Feast
or Famine - April 7, 2004 |
| Time
Travel - March 31, 2004 |
| Unwilling
to Share - March 24, 2004 |
| Quirks
of Memory - March 17, 2004 |
| Second
Hand Half Truths - March 10, 2004 |
| Diverging
Paths - March 3, 2004 |
| Body Language -
February 25, 2004 |
| Nothing
Personal - February 18, 2004 |
| Good Night -
February 11, 2004 |
| You Can't Go Back
- February 4, 2004 |
| Slowly Going Mad -
January 28, 2004 |
| Lack of Passion
- January 21, 2004 |
| Best Wishes -
January 14, 2004 |
|
Final Blessing - January 7,2004 |
|
| Sensitivity - April
2, 2003 |
| Moral Mentoring -
April 9, 2003 |
| Roots - April 16, 2003 |
| Picking up the Pieces -
April 23, 2003 |
| The
Ultimate Rebellion - April 30, 2003 |
| What's a Weed? - May 7,
2003 |
| Peeking into Back
Yards - May 14, 2003 |
| Acts of God - May
21, 2003 |
| Hands-on Helping -
May 28, 2003 |
| Failure to Focus - June
4, 2003 |
| Problems with patches
- June 11, 2003 |
| Last Chances - June 18, 2003 |
| Varying Viewpoints
- June 25, 2003 |
| The Power We Rely On -
July 2, 2003 |
| Tentative
Pride - July 9, 2003 |
| Seeking the Lost- July 16, 2003 |
| Do Trees have Rights -
July 23, 2003 |
| End of the Trail -
July 30, 2003 |
| A Cup of Cold Water
- August 6, 2003 |
| Like a River -
August 13, 2003 |
| Risking
Forgiveness - August 20, 2003 |
| Gathering
Places - August 27, 2003 |
| Indiscretions -
September 3, 2003 |
| Brambles - September
10, 2003 |
| Be Interested! -
September 17, 2003 |
| Creation Stories -
September 24, 2003 |
| Worldly Wealth -
October 1, 2003 |
| Attitude of
Gratitude - October 8, 2003 |
| A Day of Rest -
October 15, 2003 |
| Buried Scars - October
22, 2003 |
| Pagan Festivals -
October 29, 2003 |
| And the Women
Weep - November 5, 2003 |
| Take My Life -
November 12, 2003 |
| Subordinate
Themes - November 19,2003 |
| Free Gifts -
November 26, 2003 |
| Act of Protest -
December 3, 2003 |
| Interpreting
the Lights - December 10, 2003 |
| Tough Way to
Start - December 17, 2003 |
| CPR Santa - December
24, 2003 |
| Unrecognized
Beliefs - December 31, 2003 |
|
|
|
