Compassionate, Intelligent, Inter-Spiritual, Non-Dogmatic

Bonhoeffer treasured Cervantes’ Don Quixote.  He believed the beleaguered idealist was an apt metaphor for the Confessing Church.

If I Had My Way is a wonderful, fun story about “doing the right thing!”

For the Honolulu OCCUPY movement 2012- sung to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh calls the Anh’s Anger series, “a wonderful gift for both children and adults who want to learn how to turn unhappy situations into joyful ones.”

In Brother Sun, Sister Moon, award-winning author Katherine Paterson re-imagines a hymn of praise originally written by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1224. Illuminated with the exquisite illustrations of cut-paper artist Pamela Dalton, this picture book offers a stunningly beautiful tribute to nature.

A young boy travels to the hills of Appalachia to meet the old-time fiddle player whose music he has admired, and so sparks a friendship that will forge a bond between generations.

Mountain-shaped silhouettes
Mark the the tall pale stalk
Of a spent yucca:
Are these its last lines of praise
For the land where it stands?

More than being a “human being” on this earth, John’s gospel calls for a transformed life: water into wine; a temple made of distributive justice-compassion, not gold and stone.

A fictional story about an error in Jewish theology that contributed to the questionable right of Christianity to exist.

It has long been a family tradition to mark the days of Advent and Christmastide seasons with the wood-carved characters appearing in our little crèche one by one, week after week, like unfolding scenes in a two-act drama. But the year one of the three wise men was nowhere to be found when it came for him to enter stage left not only got me wondering about his whereabouts, but what he could have possibly been up to.  Such speculation, I would suggest, may be no less credible than Matthew’s fanciful, retrospective tale.

Hymn lyrics – general version and wedding/union version
(Can be sung to: Regent Square (Angels from the realms of glory)—Henry Thomas Smart, Westminster Abbey (Christ is made a sure foundation)—Henry Purcell, or Cwm Rhondda (Guide me, O Thou Great Redeemer)—John Hughes)

A god who favors me and people who are like me is just too small.

Whatever form prayer takes for us, we are in need of its medication.

Good is God…All the time!
I will say it again, Good is God…All the time!
Did you hear something different?

If you are the light of the world, do you attract people to yourself or do you illuminate others?

“I’m worth as much as you,”    while true, Yearns upward much as Eve’s son Cain;    and vainforever proves such self-promotion.

Some thoughts about Fear…
written by Caris Cerdwyn