PCUSA

The Seedbed of Power and Influence

4 Comments / History, Lung Cancer, Naegeli's Laws, Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, Personal, Writer's Life / By /

In anticipation of a stellar 80° day, Andy and I headed out Saturday morning to explore the John Muir Historic Site. We toured a visitor’s center and the Martinez home where the famous “wilderness tramp” John Muir lived and raised a family for 24 years. John Muir was born in Scotland in 1838 to strict Presbyterian parents, who immigrated to Wisconsin when John was still a boy. He showed promise as an inventor, an interest that motivated him to study at university. But before graduating—he dropped out in 1863—he made a tour on foot of Iowa, Illinois, and Canada and […]

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Anxiety’s Triggers—My Big One

Leave a Comment / Anxiety, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal / By /

I’ve been on the road, driving alone in our little Sprinter van conversion RV, to meet Darling Daughter A in Ashland, Oregon. It’s a drive one can easily accomplish in one day, but I left Wednesday afternoon to get the first three hours under my belt. Without really planning it this way, I have had a mini-retreat. Driving in the quiet, enjoying the scenery, occasionally listening to music, stopping every once in awhile to stretch. It’s good for the soul! I recommend it. Sometimes a person just has to get away, into the quiet, in order to gain perspective. The

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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

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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

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Colossians 3:15: “Peace! Peace!” But Is There Peace?

3 Comments / Church, Colossians, Current Events, Marriage Definition, PCUSA, Peace Unity & Purity / By /

Spring training has started! The Giants are warming up their pitchers and catchers in Scottsdale, AZ, this week. Assessments are being made, recovery from injuries celebrated, starting lineups tried on for size. Next week the full team checks in. As of today, Major League Baseball has exactly forty-five days until opening day, April 6. What we do not hear much about, however, are the umpires. The roster of 68 umpires qualified for “the Majors” is a traveling band of baseball experts. Their calls are sacred—even with official reviews, also made by umpires—and they bear an authority that elicits respect from

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Colossians 3:1-4: We Get to Choose the Focus of Our Thoughts

2 Comments / Church, Citizenship, Colossians, Current Events, Death & Dying, PCUSA, People, Personal / By /

Last Saturday, my covenant group friend Steve Hayner died in the Lord. As his wife Sharol put it, his life was swallowed up in LIFE. I along with thousands of readers of his CaringBridge site, colleagues there at Columbia Seminary, and family and friends whose lives he touched in decades’ time, were aware that his homegoing was imminent. He was sick only about ten months, from diagnosis of his pancreatic cancer to the end of his life on earth. Occasionally he would share what was on his heart and mind as this process took its turns and twists. We all

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Colossians 2:16–23: You’re Not Good Enough Unless You __________

2 Comments / Church, Colossians, Food, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Church in Exile / By /

After a sugar fast during the month of January and a rather decadent self-indulgence on Super Bowl Sunday, today began my annual discipline of calorie cutting. I have had a life-long preoccupation with food, which I do not consider a virtue but more a matter of childhood conditioning. As Erma Bombeck wrote once, “I am not a glutton; I am an explorer of food.” No, honestly, I really am a glutton and I am not proud of it and pray regularly for deliverance from this one of the seven deadly sins. In the meantime, I am vulnerable to the promises

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Colossians 1:21-23: If Thinking Leads to Doing, Where Are We Headed?

6 Comments / Church, Colossians, PCUSA, Peace Unity & Purity, The Church in Exile / By /

As we continue our study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we are struck with the contrasts he so vividly paints. In today’s passage, Paul connects the dots between the glorious accomplishments of the Lord Jesus Christ and us (all) who were alienated and hostile to God’s intents and purposes. 21And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— 23provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the

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Colossians 1:9-11: A Productive Prayer for the Sojourner

Leave a Comment / Church, Colossians, Current Events, PCUSA / By /

9. . . asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. Parents encourage their emerging adult children with “You’ll know what to do,” but those young adults never grow old enough to know precisely what course to take any given moment. I have been a legal adult now for 43.5 years, and sometimes I still feel like I’m a

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A New Dietary Discipline for Sojourners

1 Comment / Church, PCUSA / By /

There are lots of reasons why Christian believers stop going to church. Sin may be at the root of some migration out of fellowship, but people may simply feel they no longer belong or they have sustained an injury of spirit that makes it impossible to stay. My goal here is not to cast blame or to be judgmental, but to find out what is true and see if there is anything we together can do to help. It does not seem a stretch to assert that most people want to feel at home somewhere. A sense of belonging is

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