It’s Valentine’s Day, and Ash Wednesday. I’m sitting in the waiting room of my urologist, watching an endless procession of old men come and go. I’m one of them: the brotherhood of enlarged prostates and the thousand other natural shocks…
What modern Christians might learn from the patron saint of plagues, St. Valentine
This year, thanks to a mischievous convergence of the cultural and liturgical calendars, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. It’s not the first time (2018 wasn’t that long ago) nor will it be the last (next up is 2029). Theologically,…
Valentines, ashes and the sixth anniversary of the Parkland School Shooting
For only the fifth time this century, Ash Wednesday shares the same date as Valentine’s Day, and the two will coincide only once more for the remainder of the 21st century. There is something strangely beautiful and paradoxical about these…
You think Christmas is a challenge for church leaders? Look at the calendar convergence coming in two months
The candles haven’t even been lit for Christmas Eve services, but for pastors and church staff looking ahead to the new year, an unusual calendar conflict is waiting in the wings two months from today. For only the fifth time…
When we’re afraid of the dark, God is a Mamaw waiting at home with all the lights on
I was a teenager driving myself home late one night from what we called, “the big city,” Pikeville, Ky. Several of us “juniors going on seniors” had gone to Pikeville that night to watch what I thought was a comedy….
Lent 2020: Improvising grace and embracing repentance, civility and dissent in ‘a time of national urgency’
Whatever else, Lent is the church’s reminder that we are ever improvising, seizing the half-baked idea or the unexpected moment of irony, tragedy or failure as an occasion for grace.
From spreading ashes to administering them: Ash Wednesday for a broken and grieving minister
On Ash Wednesday, I will try to reconcile with a Jesus who stands before me, ready to offer the love I desperately need. I will try to find his hand amid my darkness, a brokenness that has nothing to do with my sin.
Hunting for the divine spark in ourselves and others
On the night of Ash Wednesday, somebody sitting at the bar yelled out, “Hey! You got something black on your face!” Without thinking, I yelled back, “Hey! It’s my skin!”
I became a pastor who had trouble praying
Ash Wednesday doesn’t stand alone. It’s a gateway to the season of Lent, which is in itself a way of understanding the whole of the gospel story.