Day of Pentecost (Year 1, NL)

Back in the dark ages of the 20^th century, I remember an ad for the Yellow Pages that urged, “Let your fingers do the walking.” Now that texting has become the preferred means of communication, it seems our fingers actually do the talking.

I’ve been thinking about the complexity of communication with God, especially the challenge of praying at times when words are hard to come by. In response to such a dilemma, Paul essentially tells the Romans to let the Spirit do the talking.

Gangs excel at finding the lost, adopting them and sending them out. Therefore, gang youth can be recruited for apostolic ministry.

Dhini didn’t ask to be adopted. That's the way grace works.

I am confident that the new creation will include animals. I hope that it will include Merle, my deceased smooth-coat collie.

These Trinity Sunday texts show God moving graciously—and persistently—toward people while they struggle to stay on their feet.

With every cycle of our respiratory systems, we are sustained by the same intimate inspiration God exhaled into Adam’s muddy lungs. That breath permeates every cell of our being, nose to toes, invigorating our bodies and minds and souls until it is ready to be released, silently, from the same nostrils through which it came.

This is as ordinary as oxygen and carbon dioxide, and as extraordinary as spirit and miracle.

I got the epidural. As the pain receded, I felt an ache of disappointment settle in.

The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is working to infiltrate the whole creation with God's love.

When I combined the popular ideas of God in my mind, I ended up with a strange stew—a lover God who would torture me with fire if I stepped out of line and bless me with diamonds if I obeyed. In other words, my image of God had a serious borderline personality disorder.

In 1983, Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson wrote that "death is only one form of loss." This would have been unthinkable for Christians half a century earlier.

At my baptism, I giggled.