The New Year is filled with opportunity. Sadly, a disquieted spirit within will cause the opportunities to vanish. A renewed spirit is needed for the new year. Charles Allen writes of the terrible tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. The worst of all was to put a man in a jail cell with the ceiling so …
Tag: First Congregational Church
Dec 21
The Importance of the Body
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, I think that we have become disconnected from the traditional Christian theology of the physical body. Sometimes we think it is all bad, so we must deny anything our body wants. That is asceticism. Or we may swing the other way and feel we must satisfy …
Dec 15
The Apocalypse and Advent
Mark 13:24–“But in those days, after that tribulation,the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.” I have been thinking a lot about how Advent is such a counter-cultural season. In the traditional church year, Advent always begins with a verse like Mark 13:24. The reason for that is justice is …
Dec 07
The Harshness of Advent
“The stories of Advent are drug from the harsh soil of human struggle and the littered landscape of dashed dreams. They are told from the vista of where sin still reigns supreme and hope has gone on vacation. Many prefer the major notes of Joy and Gladness in the Christmas stories to the minor keys …
