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Everyone Is Religious
What is religion? I found myself thinking about this question today. It’s a big one, unless you already decided long ago what religion is and therefore you don’t have to spare it another thought. I’m not exactly sure yet how to organize my thoughts on the subject, so I’ll share some ideas that may or…
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This Is Not A Poem
During sabbatical, I’ve been focusing on writing as a practice. In other words, I’ve been focusing on writing as process and not product. Yes, I’ve created this blog and I’ve been posting here and people have been reading my words and sometimes clicking “like” and sometimes commenting so I suppose these posts are a “product,”…
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Church Hopping
One of my goals while on sabbatical is to visit other worshiping communities. Today I attended Hessel Church, a non-denominational church on a country road south of Sebastopol. The pastor, Rich Cundall, met with me for breakfast about five years ago, shortly after I moved back to California. I grew up, and remain, a “liberal”…
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Redwoods of Lebanon
A few years ago, I preached a sermon on the Cedars of Lebanon, the famed trees of the Bible that stood for strength and endurance and beauty and steadfastness. It was a sermon on the climate crisis and I asked the congregation to consider our own coastal redwoods. They really are most incredible. I remember…
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High School Bands
Here and there, now and then, I’ve written music. Sometimes I’ve even been in a band. The first was The Figskinz. Danny Johnson, Pete Rinaldi, and I formed “rock’s most influential band” back in 1987 when we all went down to the Musician’s Trading Post on Ocean Street in Santa Cruz and purchased electric guitars.…
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I Read a Book Once
Recently I realized I’ve done my post-high school education in three regions of the country where my four grandparents were from. As an undergrad, I attended Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest. My grandmother Broadbent grew up in Seattle. For my Masters, I went to Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My…
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Yet
Close to the center of the seat of power A boy walks in black Vans And his favorite plaid fleece, black and white, with flecks of pink The dog-eared cold does not faze him The traffic, noxious and insistent, rolls right off him This boy, one boy, from one town among so many Dreams of…
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But You Didn’t
On a previous entry, I talked about the East Coast road trip my dad and I took the summer following my first year of college. On that same trip, we visited some friends in Virginia. I forget the name of the town, but it was summer, so I remember the insects. We went for a…
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Trayvon’s Sweatshirt
Yesterday my son, Marin, and I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I had wanted to visit the last time we were here, in 2016, but it had recently opened and tickets were not available. Once entering, we looked at the map and agreed the first place we wanted to go…
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Never Nowhere, Now Somewhere, Always Everywhere
As a Christian, I am constantly trying to think through the contours of this faith I profess to live by. It seems that Christian beliefs are increasingly misunderstood and held to be authoritative by fewer and fewer people. What I find is that the more deeply one considers Christian beliefs, the more radical they appear…
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