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'practice' Tagged Posts

What are you waiting for?

Like most Americans, I don’t really like to wait. Not in line, not in traffic, not really for anything. And waiting to get on the freeway, or into a movie, or for coffee in my favorite bistro really is sort of pointless. When the waiting is done, the payoff is pretty small.   Unfortunately, my lack of being able to wait for…

Justice and Compassion

Justice is what love looks like in public – Dr. Cornel West There is an old story told about a village on a river that I first heard from a nun friend, but it seems to be so old (and pervasive) that I could not find an origin. If anyone can name the source, I’ve got a lollypop with your name on…

The Power of Symbols

Happy All Saints Day! I  love the “dancing saints” at St. Gregory of Nissa Church in San Francisco.  Completed in 2009, this wonderful 3,000 square foot painting depicts a staggering variety of traditional and surprising saints depicted in a style that recalls ancient iconography and yet all of them are dancing.  The artist,  Mark Dukes, collaborated with the congregation to select and…

The Art of Being Church

The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. –  Willa Cather, (1873 -1947) U.S. novelist,…

Holy Family Transitions Batman!

One of the things I love best about church life is the opportunity to spend time with both the very young and the very old.  For many folks who are middle-aged like me, this is still a pretty rare thing, because so many community events and organizations are not diverse across generational divides.  It’s also true, especially amongst more affluent folks, that…

Preaching What You Practice

If  you have read any of the posts on my personal blog, you will at once notice that I have written a number of posts on practice. Spiritual practice, musical practice, ethical practice, best practice:  practice, practice, practice!  It certainly seems obvious that a longtime musician is committed to practice, but there is a deeper historical and theological component to my fascination…

Commuting Fear

Anything scares me, anything scares anyone but really after all considering how dangerous everything is nothing is really very frightening. – Gertrude Stein in Everybody’s Autobiography (1932)     My first two weeks of commuting to Montclair from our home in San Francisco have been way more interesting than we might have expected!  The first week, the Bay Bridge was closed and…

Walking Together

When I interviewed with the Session of Montclair Church about the possibility of becoming your Temporary Supply Pastor, they asked me a great question: “what do you need from us?”  I told them the usual things about “setting priorities” and “giving good feedback” and then I told them that my biggest personal concern about becoming your pastor is that I would find…