by Michael | Jul 22, 2016 | Faith-Related, Family
Sunday before service started I told Nate Noonen that the sermon was hard for me, hard in the preparation. I told him it was harder for me than the words appeared to me on the page after I’d written it. Usually I try to move beyond a sermon when it’s over....
by Michael | Jul 18, 2016 | Clinical Pastoral Education, Faith-Related
Walking into a room and meeting another person wherever they are. To show up and shut up and be present. To move through the human desire to say something to make it all okay and just be. To be a reflection of God-in-flesh to those who are suffering. Also, my patients...
by Michael | Jul 8, 2016 | Faith-Related
Tonight we pray for the people of our city, our country, and our world because we have seen, participated in, allowed, and suffered so much violence. In our pain we ask for your enduring mercy. Oh, God, hear and answer us. Tonight we pray for the parents who have lost...
by Michael | Jul 6, 2016 | Faith-Related, Quotes
I might quibble over a point in this, but today’s meditation was a gift to me, given recent challenges to my soul, recent deaths I’m dying. Here’s part of it: Resurrection is not a miracle as much as it is an enduring relationship. The best way to...
by Michael | Jun 29, 2016 | Faith-Related
I’ve been inching up to what is probably going to become a basic prayer of mine for the next few years. Though I didn’t know it, the prayer seems to have simmered up from a recent conversation with a tight friendship circle, a few reflections on the lives of brothers,...
by Michael | Jun 25, 2016 | Faith-Related, Relationships
The first time I was ordained I didn’t want it. I didn’t want those ministers signing their names to a document that would permanently connect me to this call. I went through the occasion with reservations, reservations I didn’t have when I was...
