brucewriter

Lection Reflections

Waiting To Be Healed -- a Lection Reflection on John 5

(A Lection Reflection on John 5: 1-9) There are events in the Bible that are so overlaid with symbolism and meaning that trying to unpack them feels like opening one of those Russian nesting doll sets: you take out the next doll, marvel at its beauty, then see that

Lection Reflections

My Sheep Hear My Voice -- Say What?

(A Lection Reflection on John 10:27) If you look up today's text on Google, you get 1.9 million hits. If you put the text in quotes ("my sheep hear my voice") you still get 1.5 million hits. That's 1,500,000

Writing and the Arts

The Cure for Writing Constipation

I am in the second day of a two-day writing vacation. I take these once in a while to get away, see some countryside, and prime the pumps. On this WriteAway (cute), I'm at a state park that is almost empty. So, after checking in and unpacking,

Lection Reflections

Restoration or Resurrection?

(A Lection Reflection on Easter) In another Lection Reflection, I talked a little about the scope of Easter. I made the point that Easter was more than a one-time event; it is, instead, a part of God's ongoing work in the world. God is in the business

Values, Faith, and Church

The Scope of Easter

(A Lection Reflection on Easter) One of the important concepts we use in project work is "scope." It refers, of course, to the reach of the project or initiative. Does this web site rebuild involve only the interface, or are there new features included? Are we remodeling both

Lection Reflections

Palm Sunday Cynics

(A Lection Reflection on Luke 19: 28-40) Fickle. Disloyal. Unreliable. I've heard my fair share of sermons and devotionals that use such terms to describe the Palm Sunday crowd. You have too. I call them Palm Sunday Cynics. "Here they are, waving palms and praising Jesus,

Lection Reflections

And It's God From the 3-Point Line!

(A Lection Reflection on Psalm 126 and Isaiah 43: 16-21) As those who know me will attest, I'm a big sports guy. My favorite sports are football and basketball, with college basketball being at the top of the list. And as you might expect, my most favorite

Lection Reflections

The Circle of Reconciliation

(A Lection Reflection on 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21) There are certain verses in the Bible that convey such an important truth that I think they ought to be automatically highlighted in every translation. We have such a verse this week, with a truth so unusual and different that it

Lection Reflections

Hard Truths

(A Lection Reflection on Luke 13:1-9) Many years ago, I heard an important truth: Do not turn a parable into an allegory. I suspect that I violated that rule in an earlier essay I wrote on the Fig Tree and the Gardener, so today I want to take

Lection Reflections

Where Are You Looking? What Do You See?

I can't do those fake 3D drawings. You know, the ones where you focus on a red dot or some such thing, and all of a sudden out pops a scene that you didn't see before. I have friends who can see it in a few

Lection Reflections

Testing God

(A Lection Reflection on Luke 4:1-12) Let me put some thoughts in front of you, and you tell me if you've heard these before: * Trust in God. * Believe God's word. * Stand on the promises of God. * Step out in faith. Sound familiar? Sure -- we&

Lection Reflections

Your Messiah Is Too Small

(A Lection Reflection on Luke 9:28-36) Years ago, J.B. Phillips wrote a wonderful little book entitled "Your God Is Too Small." In it, he posited that what many people were busy worshipping, fighting, or ignoring was in fact an idol: their own limited conception of

Lection Reflections

Rage in 60 Seconds

(A Lection Reflection on Luke 4:21-30) If you want to say something happened in an unusually short amount of time, using "in sixty seconds" seems both specific and pretty short. This post's title references, of course, the well-known Nicolas Cage film Gone in

Writing and the Arts

New Poem: "Baptism"

New poem posted on the Poems page: "Baptism" -- short poem of imagery about Jesus's baptism.

Writing and the Arts

Writing As Calling, Writing As Drug

Thinking this morning about writing, and why I write. One of the truths you have to face as you move into emotional health is your own neediness. If you are feeling needy, admitting it just makes the neediness worse, so it's a tough task; but, like many things in emotional health, just naming it can

Values, Faith, and Church

Some Thoughts on Baptism

I taught a class last night on baptism, part of a class on various topics at church (worship, baptism, communion, liturgical year). The framework we followed seemed useful, so I thought I'd share it here. Perhaps it will help others as they work through their own understanding of

Lection Reflections

What Was God Thinking?

A Lection Reflection on Psalm 8 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower

Meta

Keeping Up

If you ask most aspiring writers why they want to be a full-time writer, they will tell you "the freedom." I suspect that many of them have an image of Hemingway in Havana, hanging out in a smoke-filled bar, drinking and telling stories. The idea of

Lection Reflections

Tying the Hands of God

If you grew up going to some sort of church Bible class, you probably remember getting old enough to ask those questions that drive the teacher crazy: Could God make something so big he couldn't pick it up? If God can do anything, could he destroy himself? Nothing blows up a class faster than a good

Lection Reflections

Is God a Communist?

Who said this? > Nothing left over to the one with the most, > Nothing lacking to the one with the least. Are you sitting there, saying to yourself "wow, that sure sounds like Marx. Didn't I read that in college?" Well, sort of, but not exactly. Here is the Karl Marx quote [https://en.wikipedia.or

Lection Reflections

Tall People and God

I'm a big fan of the early Saturday Night Live sketches (perhaps because I'm old enough to have watched them the first time they aired!). One of the great catch-phrases of those first seasons was the opening of the Weekend Update with Chevy Chase [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_Chase] dead-pann

Lection Reflections

"Brother, Are You Saved?"

If you were to ask most church members the most well-known verse in the Bible, they would immediately respond "John 3:16." A high percentage of them could surely quote it, as well: > For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever > believeth in Him should not perish,

Values, Faith, and Church

Historic Day at a Baptist Church

Memorial Day Sunday 2012 was a historic day at our church, Highland Baptist of Louisville. Why? We ordained someone to the ministry. "So what?" you say. "Churches do that all the time." True, they do. This was a little different, though. A local advocacy group (not the church) issued a press rele

Writing and the Arts

Happy New Year!

It's the first day back at work, and the first day back at writing. A few days ago, my friend Conway Stone asked on Facebook that we list three goals for 2012. Here's what I put: 1. Add 20 poems to my set and submit for

Writing and the Arts

Discovered: the Problem With the Louisville Orchestra

I have found the root cause of the demise of our Louisville Orchestra. It is in the first two sentences of the recent letter [http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111118/OPINION02/311180051] from the LO board to the Courier-Journal. Do you see it? > As the board of directors of the Louisville O