Always Reforming

To lose money, Unfortunate. To lose belongings, Disappointing. To lose a job, Manageable. To lose an opportunity, Defeating. To lose your way, Confusing. To lose a person, Irretrievable.

It's been almost a year, It feels like yesterday. It's been almost a year now, It feels like a lifetime ago.   It's been almost a year, And still, I dream of you, Back at school, Baseball games, Unfinished goals, I'm just a stupid kid again. It's been almost a year, And yet, I pull out my phone to text you Things I think you'd want to know, Meatloaf died, Faith Church closed, Michigan finally beat OSU. It's been almost a year, And how! The longest year of my life, And the quickest, too, Too much change, Yet not enough, Many, too many early graves. It's been almost a year? Wasn't it yesterday? It's been almost a year now? Are you sure it wasn't a lifetime ago?

When a church becomes nothing more than a therapeutic self-help institution, it loses the very thing for which it strives-- relevance .  If people want therapy, they have plenty of options--friends, lovers, counsellors, even the bottle--many of which are more fun and/or less expensive.  What people need from the Church is not therapy, but the Gospel.   Now, there may be instances where this life-altering Gospel alleviates the need for therapy.  When people are taught to seek first the Kingdom of Christ, other benefits--mental, physical, emotional, and financial--often accrue.  Nevertheless, that is not the primary role the Church has been called to fill.  The Gospel may occasionally replace therapy, but therapy can never replace the Gospel.

One of the most common exhortations throughout the Scriptures is to  stand firm, endure, etc .  The letters of Paul are particularly replete with this clarion call to hold fast to the Faith in the face of heresy and persecution.  One of the most famous, and perhaps most controversial, of these passages is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 : So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Hmm... I think this is one of those passages that many people have read over time and time again without really comprehending what is being said.  As a member of a denomination that is historically tied to the Protestant Reformation, I am forced to ask:  How do Protestants account for this? The Reformers, disenchanted with the endless traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, established the Scriptures as their exclusive foundation for doctrine, practice, and worship.  They viewed themselves not as...

Originally written on 1/31/17. What an adventure! What an expedition! Exploring the dark recesses of my own soul, Afraid to discover, Yet afraid to leave Undiscovered The secrets that lie beneath this pale exterior. As my head is beset by grays, I begin to see Just how fine is the line between Genius and insanity. These words, These pages turned, These evanescent lives are nothing more Than my mortal fears personified for So few eyes to see. My dreams, They seem To vanish without hope of Realization. Do I dare to enter into my own Psyche? Do I dare to venture deeper into These shrouded ruins? These abyssal caverns hide what No eye need behold, These catacombs--uncharted--can they Bare to be exposed? Deep below the surface is where The best stories grow, I fear it takes pain and sorrow To produce a Poe. As my head is beset by grays, I begin to see Just how fine is the line between Genius and insanity.

The New Testament is not a monolith.  Rather, the New Testament is a collection of writings .  Whatever we say about the New Testament (or the Bible as a whole), we should be clear that Scriptures , not Scripture , is the more technical, as well as the more traditional, term.  With hesitation I use the pronoun it when referring to the New Testament according to modern convention and in the interest of convenience. The New Testament is not a book of dogma, nor is it a Systematic Theology.  Rather, these writings were addressed to different people in different contexts responding to very different, very specific situations.  When we read an imperative in the New Testament, we should not automatically assume that we are receiving a direct command.  In other words, the New Testament is occasionally  descriptive with no thought of being prescriptive .  The New Testament is not exhaustive.  It does not, nor does it attempt to, speak to every po...

First written sometime in the distant past. Heaping bowls of popcorn, Wiffle ball in the back yard, Vicious snowball fights, Church--every Sunday, Dr. Who, Diagnosis Murder, Tragedy, A scar down the middle of her chest. Potluck dinners after church, Glop, The state of Virginia, Cousins, Early Edition, The Marx Brothers, Strained relationships, A scar down the middle of our hearts. The old Maple tree, Broken swimming pools, The dog we never had, The cats we loved, TGIF, Sanford and Son, Lessons learned too early, A coffin in the ground. A big, green house, A big, gray house, A fireplace, A wrap-around couch, Martin Luther (in black and white), The Thin Man, Missed opportunities, A giant hole in our lives. Kool-Aid in the Summer, Russian Tea in the Winter, The warmth of a family, Emotional paralysis, Star Trek, Charade, Siblings, A lifetime ago.