Month: July 2015
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Que Será Christians
In my family, my parents liked to give each of their beloved children a “theme song.” And so it was that, growing up, my sister was haunted by family members singing “Rocky Raccoon,” and I found myself treated to regular group-singings of Doris Day’s mid-century hit, “Que Será.” I found myself thinking about that song…
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Ask Anything: Why Don’t Presbyterians Kneel When We Pray?
When you pray do you: -pray a prewritten prayer, like the Lord’s Prayer or Psalm 23? -did you have to learn how to pray, or did you always know? -do you follow a pattern or use a specific order? -do you say whatever is on your mind? -do you say anything? Or are you quiet?…
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Reading Calvin and the Rule of Love
This month, I will be preaching and teaching on questions that have come from the pews–we are calling it the “Ask Me Anything” sermon series, and so far the questions I have received have proven quite interesting. Initially, I had conceived of this as an opportunity for folks to ask questions about our faith and…
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“Salzburg, Republic of Austria, July 2006” by Melaney Poli
In order not to repeat history, it is not enough to know it, we must know ourselves, and our complicity. -Schillling Some days you have to take what you can get, and that day my mother was too sick to find yet one more crowded pavement cafe and the worst of it was, sitting…
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Sing A New Song: Psalms of New Orientation
One of the strengths of national holidays is that we are given an opportunity to reflect on the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are. Many of us are afforded some federally mandated time to pause and to remember the values and the struggles that have brought us as a country to where…
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How Long, O Lord? Psalms of Lament
If you were to take a look in your hymnal right now, smack in the middle, you would find that there are songs that are associated with Psalms. Part of the reason for this is because, in our tradition at least, for most of our history the songs we have sung have been the psalms…
Deeper in me than I 