While we wait to gather again physically, we can ask: How are we experiencing the Spirit’s movement in our cyberspaces of worship, inviting us to cross boundaries between human, machine, more-than-human, the physical and the non-physical?
Amid isolation and silence forced by a pandemic, ‘We’re all monks now’
Even if shelter-in-place for you feels like being held in solitary confinement, this devastating pandemic WILL end. Until then, perhaps you have been given a rare opportunity to quiet your heart and mind for a greater purpose.
I’m a music minister who nearly died from COVID-19. Here’s what I’m called to do now
I have become a patient advocate and personal resource for people around the country whose loved ones and friends are now behind the COVID curtain, alone. With reluctance, I have also entered the public dialogue about COVID-19 on social media.
I’ll get to hope. For now, I need to sit in the ashes and mourn
This pandemic is not a theological crisis. It’s a moral one. We would do well in this moment to take the prophet Jeremiah’s advice to “put on sackcloth, lament and howl.” We need to mourn and rage and contemplate what led us to this moment.
The sacrament of not touching: a gift of grace made literally a matter of life and death
As congregational separation and virtual worship persist, I find myself longing for the healing touches consistently dispensed in our home congregation – sacraments of grace I’ve taken all-too-for-granted.
Self-care as political resistance – or how (not) to sacrifice humans to ‘save’ the economy
In the face of economic collapse, Americans are being invited to become sacrificially collectivist in their willingness to strap life, limb and vulnerable loved ones to the altar of our hyperventilating economy for the good of “everyone.”
Confronting all who would abuse the sacred idea of liberation in a time of crisis
Liberation is a sacred idea. Those who exploit the crisis of a global pandemic for their own political purposes or personal gain are not liberators.
We need to get our theology straight: It was not God’s intent that Jesus die
In incarnational theology Jesus reveals to us the very nature and heart of God – so the cross cannot be Jesus’ payment, saving us from God. There can be no distinction between the work of Jesus and the work of God, the nature of Jesus and the nature of God.
Now what? Some thoughts about what’s next for the scattered and gathered church
Like retailers, universities and hospitals, churches will be having conversations around this question: Are buildings a necessity for delivering our services and ministries? In our new normal, physical location may be only one of many expressions of church.
Will our common vulnerabilities in this moment lead us to unite for the common good?
Perhaps this global pandemic will gather in each of us a calm assurance, having become so weary of our vices, we finally embrace our cure – by embracing one another.
The ‘tie that binds’: fellowship is disrupted and distanced, but not destroyed
Social distancing has disrupted our habits of work and worship. We can adapt, whether adeptly or awkwardly. We do not, however, have to let social distancing disrupt or destroy “the tie that binds” and “the fellowship of kindred minds.”
Earth Day: the amazing dung beetle and lessons on loving all God’s creation
Without dung beetles, greenhouse gases (from methane produced by animals) would be orders of magnitude greater than at present, more than all the vehicle exhaust on earth.