For the sake of learning, I’d like to ask you to consider the circumstances since the start of 2020 as a grand psychological experiment.

I’ve been thinking about sin and evil in recent days.

That’s somewhat unusual for me. But it is difficult to avoid the daily news assault of people treating others badly, political treachery and revenge, random and meaningless gun violence, and racial and ethnic hatreds tearing nations apart. Sin and evil are on full display.

William Blake had quite the year in his home city of London in 2019.  The Tate Britain Museum had a major exhibition of his extraordinary multifaceted art, something it does every twenty years or so.

I know in my heart if Jesus were bearing witness to the world as it is today, if he walked among us in sandals and robe he would want us to take care of each other, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

After many such encounters, I began to realize that the seemingly random and disconnected utterances of people in psychosis often had very deep significance.  Their expressions were profound reflections of their subjective experience, windows into the souls of us all.  We take our inner lives for granted, not examining the structure of the psyche, until there is a breakdown.  Then its contents are revealed, and we get a look at its structure.   This inner architecture is amazing, but it’s not neat, tidy, and rational, so it can be a scary discovery.

When we care enough to listen to others, not so much as to give them advice, but to understand them…not so much to solve their problems but to be their confidante…not so much to inspire them but to be there for them, we become to them a trustworthy friend.

We are all spiritually, if not physically/chemically, intertwined to symbiotically and synergistically coexist for the mutual benefit of all.

Following another memorial, Monroe said she was feeling “very weepy, very frazzled, and fragile.” She hadn’t shared a hug with James in weeks.

For my entire life I assumed something that perhaps I shouldn’t have: I thought Christians were supposed to care about people. Not necessarily agree with them or believe what they believe or even like them—but see them each as specific and unique image-bearers of the divine, to want and to work for Shalom for them: wholeness, happiness, peace, safety, rest.

Will you join us in making a difference for children all over the world? Today, children are seriously undernourished when it comes to spirituality. They are often either taught dogma in Sunday School or secularism at home …

We are living these days under what feels like house arrest, as we observe “social distancing.” That’s an oxymoron, if there ever was one. Human beings are soft-wired – if not hardwired – to be together. Nowadays, the kindest thing we can do for each other is to keep our distance.

Sometimes, in the midst of a crowd we experience the kind of temptations that bring our demons to the surface and we have to take a long hard look at where our desires might lead us. It is not always easy to choose LOVE over fear.

Students – and everyone else – are thirsty for non-transactional connections.  They crave real friendships that are grounded in unconditional agape love. 

We’re sorry that the world is such a terrible place. We’re sorry that the earth herself is groaning under the weight of our filth. We’re sorry that billionaires rule the world. We’re sorry that my consumption enslaves others in poverty. We’re sorry that justice is so difficult to come by for the poor. We’re sorry, I’m sorry, You’re sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. What do you want from us?

Watch this video as the United Church of Christ’s quarterly medical debt forgiveness campaign continued in St Louis over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. Twelve St. Louis and Missouri Mid-South Conference congregations and the Deaconess Foundation joined forces to come up with over $100,000 in donations.

It is easy to get so caught upin the business and troublesof our own lives,

Why is race still a thing in America? 150 years after the end of slavery, 50 years after the integration of public schools, a decade after the election of a black president, why is racism still such a powerful influence in our culture.

Our 2020 updated version of the 8 Points of progressive Christianity