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Fellowship of Saints and Sinners

The other day I read an article by a fellow hospice chaplain, Emma Churchman, reflecting on ministry to the sick and the dying. The job of chaplain, as Churchman puts it so beautifully, is primarily that of “midwifing the Holy.” The metaphor is wonderful, and the article is a good one, with one rather intrusive…

This week’s musical mental health break is from the British folk band Bear’s Den who performed at my local bar The Earl on Monday night. (Any band that opens for Mumford & Sons I’m gonna like, so I knew I had to be there.) They’re a new favorite of mine. “Agape” is one expression in…

Phew. I’m coming up to breathe after submersion in training modules and orientation for a new job. I’ll be working part-time as a hospice chaplain—more reflections to come on this experience no doubt. I miss you and hope to be back a bit more regularly soon at this intersection between God and life. In the…

We often talk of Lent as a season. Yesterday the woman bagging my groceries made “Lent” a verb. The one-inch-thick, pound-plus bar of Belgian chocolate was already safely tucked away in one of the bags when I explained that for the next 40 days I’d be abstaining from sweets and alcoholic beverages in order to…

This week’s musical mental health break comes from the world of folk rock where I stumbled into Parker Millsap and his “Truckstop Gospel,” thanks to a segment on NPR yesterday. Parker Millsap is only 20 but has the voice of an old soul; and his “Truckstop Gospel” plays on the ambiguities of American evangelical Christian…

Yesterday we met Bruce Strom who is helping to grow and steer a movement of lawyers and churches giving a voice to legally disenfranchised (and poor) populations in this country. Today we get a bit more personal, with Bruce sharing how he came to this line of work, leaving a successful and remunerative law practice…

Yesterday I promised you a treat: today is the first installment of an interview with Bruce Strom. Strom directs the organization Gospel Justice Initiative and is the author of the book Gospel Justice. I met Bruce after writing Grace Sticks and in particular, a chapter on worship (“Honk if you love Jesus. Text if you…

Yes, any implicit self-comparisons to Martin Luther King Jr. stop with the headline. But seriously, last week I went to jail. Not for a civil rights protest, and no, not for being a great sinner, although I’ve had plenty of great sinning days, too. I went to jail to visit a woman who is there…

The longer I live, the more I’m learning the importance of celebrating the people whose lives have touched mine—not just after they die, but when they are still alive. “Emilia Pavlovna” (as she’s been called since I sat in her first-year Russian class during my freshman year of college more than 20 years ago) is…

“Debbie Downer” may be fictional; but we’ve all been around people who bring us down; some days those people may even be our own selves. Thankfully, we don’t have to let the Debbies crash the party, and when personified, we can even laugh at them. This blast-from-the-past Saturday Night Live sketch comes with the hope…
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