Thoughts on John Wesley, UMC, life, faith, and anything else!
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The Last Goodbye Revisited
Grief is a funny thing. As a pastor, I’ve read about grief, I’ve studied it and I’ve watched people go through it. Yet, I am still surprised. I was surprised this morning to find myself in tears after a dream I had about my father. My father died in September. Here it is in May…
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Sleeping in Church
I came across this in John Cassian’s “The Institutes” in the section on the spirit of gluttony. “This same old man declared, based on the following indications, that the devil has ever been the promoter of foolish tales and the enemy of spiritual conferences. For when he was talking with some of the brothers about…
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False Significance
Here’s a quote from Susan Muto’s work “Where Lovers Meet: Inside the Interior Castle.” This work is a companion or commentary to St. Teresa of Avila’s “Interior Castle” classic on the spiritual life. Here Muto is discussing St. Teresa’s ‘vipers’ that one encounters as he or she seeks to draw near to God: The viper’s…
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Pastors and Expectations
Someone once told me that a pastor is the only person who has two hundred bosses. That is…if you serve a church with two hundred members. The larger the church, the more ‘bosses’ you have. Of course I chuckled at that. It isn’t nearly that bad, but one of the pressures of being of pastor…
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Imprisoned
Our life may be imprisoned in functional dispositions. They dim the vision of the spirit. Most harmful in this regard are those of ascendancy over others. To prove our functional potency, we may strive vigorously to outshine other people. This competitive attitude engenders inordinate strife and self-exertion. As a result our bloodstream may be polluted…