Wandering Elder

I hope that you, dear reader, have a peaceful Christmas. I hope that you, like Mary, can take this story to heart and ponder it.  Who knows where it might lead or into what it might grow. I hope that you can see the light of hope and hear the sounds of joy this Christmas. I hope that you might find calm in the midst of a troubled world. I hope that the words of the angels can be applied to your life: be not afraid. I hope that as we move into another year, it will have opportunities of which we have not dreamed, opportunities for good and not for ill. May God bless you and us and all.

I have touched on this idea before, I am sure, but I find that the more I serve as a pastor the less I can speak my personal thoughts. Some may argue that a pastor should have  no personal thoughts because their thoughts should always be on their congregation (or flock).  Therefore everything is done for and on their behalf.  I have heard some pastors lecture on just that idea - one in particular who stated that we (pastors) have no personal time and that our time should always be other  people's time unless they have no need for us at that moment.  By that he meant that if we were eating with our own family and someone calls needing to talk or whatever else, the meal with our own family becomes less of a priority because the congregational need must always come first. While I understand the argument I find that I am not so persuaded. It is in regards to preaching and teaching, though, that I find I have to be very, very guarded as to what I say.  I h...

With the rise of incendiary language and racial tensions being higher now than I can ever remember, I have found myself thinking about race and questions of ethnic identity. Let me start with what may be a poor analogy, but hear me out. I don't eat at Applebee's all that much any more.  I used  to.  Quite a bit, actually.  I have to say, though, that I had a few bad experiences at one particular Applebee's that left my stomach and I a bit wary of eating there again.  Now, it could be that the particular  Applebee's in question is just a poorly managed example and the food was not up to the standards of the larger chain.  However, and here is the critical part, those bad experiences have left me feeling a bit cool towards the entire chain.  So while my experience in a particular Applebee's could have been an anomaly (or characteristic of that one  restaurant), I have found that I am less apt to trust the other thousands of Applebee's acros...

During this Advent season, I find myself deeply unsettled.  From the crass, fluffy Christmas specials on television that feature poor mock-ups of decent Christmas movies such as It's a Wonderful Life  to hearing people scream "This is the Christmas spirit!" at a house covered in lights, I find that Christmas has been almost completely stripped of Christ. And I don't mean that "Keep Christ in Christmas" argument.  I mean Christmas as a term has become so absorbed by our capitalistic, materialistic society that Christmas in public  has almost no bearing to the Christian celebration.  It has been absorbed into the  civil  religion of our country which equates Christmas with freedom with the Pilgrims with religious freedom (ironically) with religiosity with Black Friday.  Jesus plays a very small role in Christmas any more. And yet as Christmas becomes more of a civil religious holiday, it holds less and less of its peaceful appeal or call.  ...

I am a fan of Dr. Who.  I confess I enjoy the old  Doctor programs a bit more than the current ones.  That may have something to do with the fact that when I saw the first ones on PBS back in the early 80's, I was much younger and could more easily suspend disbelief and enter the more imaginative world of the programs than I can now. Yet even in the new version of Dr. Who, there is a trend that is almost jokingly a part of the mythology of the series.  That trend is that the Doctor always seems to find time to say to whomever he is with that he will "explain later."  That later  may be the end of the episode or, in some cases, never.  The Doctor figures it out but can't take the time to explain what  he figured our or how .  Sometimes it is a plot device - time is against the Doctor and he has to move quickly.  Other times it has to do with the process of editing.  Taking time to explain doesn't always work well on television or i...

I am at the age now where I have to recognize a few things about life.  Some are good, some are bad, and some are just kind of there.  I wouldn't call them sad things, but they aren't happy.  They are just...there. Much of those 'there' things I have found have to do with the idea of being on the back side of a wave.  Like getting into real estate just as the bubble bursts.  Though this is more of a professional issue, I suppose.  For me anyway. As a pastor, one of the things I used to count on was the staid and predictable nature of how the church worked.  Change took place within the system but, being Methodists, it took time and committees and meetings and more time.  Now, I look at my denomination and I find that I am no longer a part of the cresting wave, if I ever was.  Instead, I feel as if I am on the back side of the wave that has already begun to dissipate, and those on the back of it are not surfing it but riding it into its sl...

As I sit on this very rainy day and listen to the sound of the water hitting the roof and rattling down the gutters, I find that whatever regrets I have (or have had) seem to be more easily recalled.  That doesn't always  happen on a rainy day, but something about the gray skies pulls out the melancholy - but it does not pull enough for a total extrication.  Perhaps that comes from some subconscious unwillingness to completely let myself be rid of those feelings of regret. That may be because many of my regrets come from the recognition of poor behavior on my part in the past.  I find that in the midst of a thought, conversation, or walk between rooms or offices, that a flash of memory hits and I am back in high school, or a moment in college, or in some intangible age where I can hear or see myself acting poorly towards someone: making fun of them, saying something mean or mean-spirited, or not acting in a manner becoming of me.  And as far back as some of th...