The Blue Church

During their forty year sojourn in the desert, the nation Israel had several confrontations with God. There were various forms of discipline for this, none more memorable than this story in Numbers 21:

A few years ago I was reading a book by an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker when I came across a term I had not seen. His sentence was something like this: “It was a frustrating day of hiking, taken up mostly with P.U.D’s.” I was stumped.

God’s greatest revelation is also His most complex attribute, and that is His righteousness. We miss this sometimes, for most people equate righteousness with justice, and while they are related, they are not the same. In fact many older theology books don’t list “righteousness” as an attribute of God,

I was never very good at keeping New Year’s resolutions, so many years ago I made a New Year’s resolution not to make any more New Year’s resolutions, and so far, I’ve kept that one.

Of the year. . .

And what a year it was. We mused on this a few days ago, and it bears repeating. Many who are looking for a different and somehow miraculously better year in 2021 may be disappointed.

While many of our verbal shortcuts have gone the way of the Dodo, the word “cool” has somehow survived for decades. Once the word had escaped the orbit of jazz musicians and circulated in everyday life, it has displayed a remarkable resilience. There are cool cars, cool stores,

One thing I’ve always found fascinating is comparing our prayers to prayers found in the Bible, especially those of Jesus and Paul. If you attend a prayer meeting, or hear public prayers, you will tend to hear prayers for health, financial prosperity, physical safety, traveling mercies,

“The Hound of Heaven” is a poem by Francis Thompson, first published in 1893. The poem runs to 182 lines, and is tough sledding, even for English majors. But it is a masterpiece, and deserving of the acclaim that it has brought the poet, though most of it came after his death in 1907.

Folks often wish for a white Christmas, and this year many of us had one. The snow was fluffy here, not wet, and maybe only two inches deep. But looking out at the trees covered in it, what stands out is its whiteness.

Advent, as you know, is a time for somber reflection about the coming of Jesus. But we are so used to the season that we may not always be in tune with the implications of this amazing reality that God has, in fact, come near. He not only came near,