Tag: Life
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Christ Is A Demonstrable Verb
Lately I don’t feel that comfortable in my skin. And that is a good thing. In some ways, I feel like what I imagine a butterfly or moth must experience when they are making their way out of their cocoon or chrysalis. I’m trying to spread my wings, but I am coming up against some…
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Trading My Religion for a Cross and a Commandment
A couple of days ago I responded to an online discussion question that compared religiosity and righteousness. Honestly, I rarely comment on these kinds of questions because I don’t have much interest in having someone call me a socialist or something just because of how I interpret certain teachings from scripture about what it means…
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Don’t Let Death Get In the Way
How Would You Live if You Knew You Couldn’t Die? Death is so annoying. That’s how I feel about it right now. It is annoying, because for so many of us, the fear of it is a distorting filter that obscures our ability to live a true life or to relate to others who are…
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Withholding Kindness Causes Harm
On the other side of all of the limitations that we accept for ourselves and project onto others is an awareness that each and everyone of us has the potential to be a greater contribution to the world than we might know. Conditioned by the illusion that there are some of us who are worthy…
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The True You Knows What Leads to Happiness
The true you knows what leads to happiness. In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet is told that God knew him before he was ever formed in his mother’s womb and had consecrated him as a prophet. Even though I said that identity is not inherent, I don’t think this proclamation is contradictory. To be…
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Developing A Sense of True Identity
If the nations of this world all die eventually, I imagine the official cause of death would be from complications due to the identity struggles of their citizenry. I get no pleasure out of making that statement, but I cannot ignore that, as far as I can tell, the divided world seems to be in…
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Who Are You Ashamed For?
Is it possible for humans to create or invite in the possibility of a shameless society? Or, is shame an integral part of group building and maintenance, without which there would be more chaos than we currently witness? One of the most difficult things about engaging with groups is the tendency of collectives to try…
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What Do I Pray For?
The day after the Vegas shootings, I dreamed that I was in the pulpit doing the “Prayers of the People” and decided not to stop until I could tell that my prayers were having some positive effect on the world. I ended up being at the pulpit for days on end without eating or sleeping…
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An Open Letter to Red Hats
Dear Red Hats, I’m sorry. What can I say? There’s no excuse. I must confess. I’m a hatist. Confession is the first step on the road to redemption and I need to be redeemed. My understanding of my Spiritual discipline (Christianity), which many who wear you also profess, teaches that there is no fear in…
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Ghosts of Suicide
I am not one of those people who believes that people ever get over the traumas that happen in their lives. Rather, I believe that we either learn to live with them or we expand to leverage them. In my own life, I can admit that I have never gotten over anything in the conventional…
