TagLent

Desk Detritus

Last week, the computer mouse on my desk mysteriously fell between the desk and the wall in my office.  By “mysteriously”, I mean “was thrown against the wall in frustration over an uncooperative website form I was trying to fill out.”  My desk weighs the equivalent of a mid-sized rhinoceros, so usually things go there…

Lenten Loose Ends

(Please be aware that during the season of Lent, these weekly devotions will be arriving in your inbox on Tuesdays.) I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Romans 7:15, NRSV) Yes, it is a bit sloppy.  I’m not talking…

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Crossed Palms

(Please be aware that during the season of Lent, these weekly devotions will be arriving in your inbox on Tuesdays.) I see them a few dozen times a day … every time I walk in or out of my office.  They sit in a wicker wine bottle basket just inside the door to my office. …

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Battling with Diabolos

I’ve never been in a true wilderness.  I’ve come close, I suppose.  When I was a student at Furman University in South Carolina back in the 70’s, there were places in neighboring Pickens County that were pretty remote and where people were few and far between.  Nature … and home-made moonshine stills  … ruled the…

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Renunciation

(Please be aware that during the season of Lent, these weekly devotions will be arriving in your inbox on Tuesdays.) I mean, really … how often do you get to say these words … “I Renounce Them!”  You can’t say “I renounce them!” to the Girl Scout selling cookies outside of Walmart … you simply…

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The Blessing of an Egg Sandwich

Email Devotion Week Of Lent 5 By Brendan Armitage “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1: 2-3) It’s buttery.  Just eggs and bread, mind you, but good quality of both, and fresh.  Somehow, in…

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How Does God Love the World?

Traditional sermon   lent 4 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Colossians 1:3). Let’s go back in time to the mid-1970s. And, yes, I’m talking about a little over 40 years ago. I was in high school. Disco, very wide ties, platform shoes, tacky…

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Lent and the Center

  Lent is in full swing and we’re rapidly approaching the center of the church year, Holy Week. Late in Lent this lectionary year we hear many readings from the gospel of John. Often cited as being the more difficult and ‘heady’ gospel, John emphasizes the depths of Jesus’ authority and personhood where the synoptic…

The Godly Beauty Within Us

EMAIL DEVOTIONAL Passion Sunday Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. (Psalm 50:2) The great thing about birds, is that they often have beautiful things within them.  The pale blue of the robin’s egg … the emerald sheen of an emu’s egg … and the lavender and brown blotched vulture egg.  I…

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Are you blind?

New Day Sermon Lent 4 The sermon is a combination of the lesson from John with a drama woven throughout.  Do you see yourself in any of the characters?  We often complain of others not seeing their bad behavior, but many times we are blinded to our own.