revmary

Was Jesus Anxious about His Impending Death?

11 Comments / Anxiety, Death & Dying, Lung Cancer / By /

Anxiety lurks at the edges of my mental and spiritual life. I come by it honestly, that is, I grew up in an anxious home. It is part of my Christian testimony: Jesus’ gracious invasion into my awareness and his Spirit’s residence in my soul for 47 (!) years definitely changed my course by moderating anxiety’s influence. For this I am deeply grateful. So when cancer attempted to take over my body in 2013-14, and in the three years of cancer-freedom since then, the question of anxiety was forefront in my mind. I blogged about it at the time, and […]

Was Jesus Anxious about His Impending Death? Read More »

A Different Lens on Holy Week

2 Comments / Anxiety, Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal / By /

Today’s entry is one more context-setting blog, and then I think tomorrow I can start in on some Holy Week reflections. One of the more interesting ministry directions I have taken in the last year and a half is to involve myself helping people who suffer from lung disease (sometimes cancer, but more likely asthma, COPD, or emphysema). When I was diagnosed with lung cancer in the fall of 2013, I was introduced to a new community of “my people,” those for whom breathing is an appreciated gift and intentional effort. Part of my recovery in 2014 required me to

A Different Lens on Holy Week Read More »

A Prolonged Celebration

27 Comments / Uncategorized / By /

Now don’t fall over in a dead faint as I write my first blog post in about a year and a half. No precipitating event has compelled me to write. Sitting down today with the purpose of writing something was completely spur of the moment. It’s just time to start engaging again, bringing the Word to life. I’ll be honest: I have no idea who my readers are now, but I hope you will give me some feedback (by means of “Comments”) so that I get a sense of you and what you find of value here. The quick updates

A Prolonged Celebration Read More »

So, What’s with Mary’s Blog-Silence?

9 Comments / Uncategorized / By /

It has been three months since I told you I would not be writing “until the end of June.” Here it is, mid-September, and a couple of you have expressed curiosity, concern, or relief that I have been silent all this time! Though I don’t particularly feel the need to explain myself, the fact that concerns about my health tend to crop up moves me to do so. Health update: I remain convincingly cancer-free and grateful everyday to God for the gift of life. I still get checked out with a CT scan every three months—though that has gone to

So, What’s with Mary’s Blog-Silence? Read More »

Making a Joyful Noise to the Lord

6 Comments / Death & Dying, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Hello faithful readers, I am taking a blogging break for the month of June to accommodate the intense concentration required to prepare and sing several choral concerts this month. It’s a spiritual discipline of another sort. I am in the middle of final rehearsals this week, in anticipation of two “bon voyage” performances this weekend in Seattle. After a week’s break, I head to Frankfurt with the Northwest Firelight Chorale, to visit and perform in the Rhein Valley and Cologne in Germany and points west in Alsace and Burgundy France. Crazy, I know. My 62-year-old brain is in overdrive memorizing eighteen pieces,

Making a Joyful Noise to the Lord Read More »

So What IS God Like?

2 Comments / God, Theological Reflection, Uncategorized / By /

Somebody made a quirky comment about God and Jesus the other day; it got me thinking. It went something like this: “I’m a Jesus person; the God of the Old Testament needs rehabilitation, and Jesus did that.” Aside from who/what you think might be “the God of the Old Testament,” can you see what is wrong with this statement? The comment basically states that Jesus is not the same God as YHWH of old! It also suggests that the speaker might not be truly Trinitarian. But let’s take a look at one statement of the character of God found in

So What IS God Like? Read More »

How Can We Know the Nature and Character of God?

Leave a Comment / God, PCUSA, Scripture, Theological Reflection / By /

I have heard it said, even in PCUSA General Assembly committee meetings, that God is unknowable. “God is so vast and so big that we cannot possible know or understand what God wants to do.” This is a bogus claim in the guise of humility. As I have written before, God wants to be known and has gone to great lengths to make himself known to his creation (cf. Deuteronomy 4:5–8, 32–36). Not only can we know about God—his nature and character—we can actually know God (more on that in a later post). Our investigation into God’s background is not

How Can We Know the Nature and Character of God? Read More »

The God of Self Must Stand Down

6 Comments / Current Events, God, It All Started in the Garden, Moral Authority, PCUSA, The Property Clause, Theological Reflection / By /

The human lust for power is a natural outflow of Adam and Eve’s resistance to God’s authority. When a person, a group, or a nation believes itself to be any equivalent of “the center of the universe,” bad things begin to happen. Adam and Eve’s choice may seem innocent enough to modern eyes, but within a generation, murder had entered human experience. The desire of one to dominate another comes out of the irreconcilable demands of two adjacent egos vying for the center of the universe. If a culture adopts the philosophy that all people are free to do whatever

The God of Self Must Stand Down Read More »

Allegiance to the Wrong God

2 Comments / God, It All Started in the Garden, Theological Reflection / By /

Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Seminary, recounts the story that took place when he was pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley (California). A very brief report of the story appears in his book The Dangerous Act of Worship (p. 64), but he shared an expanded version in a talk a few years ago: A gentleman came to him a bit confused and befuddled, because his wife had just become a Christian. His purpose for the visit was to get the Cliff Notes rendition of the faith—“just bullet points, please”—so he could hold his own in the nightly conversation he

Allegiance to the Wrong God Read More »

The Gods We Worship

1 Comment / Current Events, God, Theological Reflection, Turkey / By /

My second prod to think and write about belief in God comes from my experience in Turkey and Greece, where “gods” were everywhere—or at least remnants of worship spaces, icon niches, and other ancient signs of pantheism and Greek/Roman mythology. Walking up the hill through the ruins of Delphi (Greece), we encountered the monument to Argos, the sanctuary of Gaia, and the great temple to Apollo. In Ephesus (Turkey), strolling down the main road made of marble, we saw what is left of the Temple of Artemis (one of the seven Great Wonders of the Ancient World, but represented now

The Gods We Worship Read More »

Scroll to Top