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To the End — A Christmas Story
I’m beginning my time at Nemours Children’s Hospital. Moving into chaplaincy again, this story came to mind. I wrote it about my first experience of death in the hospital one December many years ago. It’s almost all true, but none of the names are. May what needs to be unmade in you die this winter,…
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Mary Said “Yes!” — A Bible Story
Mary Said “Yes!” (This one is actually a play) ——– Luke 1:26-28 (New Living Translation) In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to…
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Imaginative Prayer: Am I a cosmic dolphin?
“I was kind of like a cosmic dolphin,” I said to my friend as I described the waking dream I had while meditating. Angela Lam of Jesus Collective had led us in a time of imaginative prayer. She had painted us a scene in which Jesus was present in some way that I forget, but…
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Peacemakers Observing Veteran’s Day
My friend from the Jesus Collective, Keith Smith, shared this today on Facebook: “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.” Praying for shalom in our veterans and in our world. That’s pretty much it, I think. How do Peacemakers who follow Jesus observe Veteran’s day? Praying for shalom in our veterans and in our world.…
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With Days Getting Shorter Here Are Seven Ways To De-Funk
The sun sets today at 6:09 pm. In two months it will set at 4:39 pm. With the spookiest weekend of the year in a couple of days, the biggest ghost haunting me right now is the actual darkness. For many of my friends and neighbors, with November and December in the Northern Hemisphere come…
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Fullfill All Righteousness: a meditation on Matthew 3
Jesus changes the direction of all our religious quests. We had convinced ourselves that by our careful observation we could be righteous, but we had only just begun. We hade barely gotten to the beginning when we thought we had arrived at the end. “John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of…
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Lost and Found Resurrection – A Sonnet
I was dumbstruck when I discovered the little resurrection pendant I had lost at least a year earlier in the parking lot of Circle of Hope’s building in South Jersey. I had lost it and looked everywhere in my house but never even began to look elsewhere. Yet, there it was right next to where…
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I refuse to know everything!
It seems that if I am going to care about anything, I have to care about everything. The message that has flooded the basement and whole house of my imagination is “all or nothing.” How did this happen? We (maybe humans; definitely North Americans) have a fascination with technique and expertise. Everyone could be an…
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The Resurrection is a Whole Vibe
Rachel Sensenig, another Circle of Hope pastor, recently posted one of those billboard type posts on facebook: “Do I have to believe in the resurrection in order to be a Christian?” It generated some facebook dialogue which might challenge the truth of our Circle of Hope proverb: “Dialogue keeps us connected and protects our gravity.”…
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An Old Sonnet: Facing the Eternal Word
I’m working on a few new poems that are just not quite ready. So here’s an older post that with a poem that came to mind this week. I thought I would share it again. My Co-Authors: The Mother Delaware, C.S. Lewis, Joy Davidman, and the Apostles John and Paul This morning I was sitting…
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Making a splash in my neighborhood (You can too!)
Putting Circle of Hope on the Map in OUR Neighborhoods This month, Circle of Hope sponsored the West Collingswood Extension Civic Association newsletter. That’s my neighborhood. It’s a wonderful, weird little slice of South Jersey. It is part of Haddon Township, but separated from the largest chunk of this patchwork township by Collingswood. AND my…
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Loosestrife: A Sunday Sonnet
Loosestrife for Oliver (“peacemaker”), Theodore (“Gift of God”) and Lysimachus (Not the warrior of Third Century Thrace but the proto-botanist physician of minor Fifth Century renown and the first Western identifier of the lythrum salicaria plant commonly known in English as Loosestrife) An etymological blunder brought This blood beknighted flow’r upon my banks Lysimachus who found…
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Are You Compromising for Love? :: A report From Getting to Know the Bible
Getting to Know the Bible In Circle of Hope we say in our proverbs “The Bible should be known and followed, and that is a group project” and one of the ways we are doing that is our “Getting to Know the Bible” dialogue series. The pastors and their friends are leading 90 minute zoom…
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A Christian Pledge of Allegiance
I wrote this prayer for our Sunday meetings. I started with this image I found around Memorial Day and kept going from there. It helps me put the holiday in perspective. I’ll be raising money for my local civic association and watching fireworks (my favorite fourth of July activities), but I will not be…
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The Holy Spirit Helped Me Write This Poem
When something wonderful happens I often write it down so I can remember to write a poem about it. I love writing poetry. I draw my inspiration from those epiphanies that happen often enough in a life lived with open eyes. “Open eyelids and open hearts” I should say. Because sometimes what you see is…
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To the Graduates of 2021
This is to the graduates – college grads, high school grads, other kinds of grads, too. In my neck of the woods I’m talking to Camden, Pennsauken, Collingswood, Cherry Hill East and West, Haddon Township, Gloucester City, Audubon High Schools, and more. I’m talking to Rutgers, Rowan, the community colleges in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester…
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Unpatriotic Reflections on Immigration for Memorial Day
As we head into Memorial Day, let us consider our stories When my ancestors immigrated to North America they were called pilgrims, settlers, pioneers. When immigrants today come to North America the most common names are refugee, asylum seeker, alien. Why did the narrative change? My ancestors are heroes, today they would be from another…
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Hezekiah Walker, Moana and Me Say “We Are Worshippers”
“Every praise is to our God” is the title and refrain of Hezekiah Walker’s do-you-need-a-little-joy-right-now? jam. I love this song! But it does have some weird language that trips me up a little, and I think might trip you up even more if you are not used to church music. Every praise is to our…
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How Jesus Says “Woman”
John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what…
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“Is not the knowledge of difference essential to the deepest love?”
George MacDonald dreams about heaven a lot. It seems like a good thing to do, especially for the hopeless times. If those dreams draw you into some separating reverie and not into love of thy neighbor, stop. Don’t have a UFO theology. Don’t just wait to get beamed out of here. Here is where you…
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Today, if you hear his voice 