Merry Christmas!

I read recently that using punctuation in your texts makes you seem passive-aggressive and judgmental to the average "texter." On the other hand, these same people found nothing wrong with using exclamation points for everything. I  am thankful we have now evolved to emojis, as this will save us all the tediousness of periods, semicolons, and the dreaded "Oxford" comma. (Which I just used.)

Merry Christmas! (You probably mean it.)

Merry Christmas!!! (You definitely mean it.)

Merry Christmas !!!!!!!!! (Not even the Baby Jesus means it more than you.)

!@#$%^&* (What did you get me for Christmas? In "emoji.")


Last night I had the Worship Lab* doing the "Hokey-Pokey." Apparently, as with the words "Hocus Pocus," the song is a parody of all the priestly motions designed to transubstantiate the bread and the wine into the Body and blood of Jesus Christ. As part of our "Dance, Dance Shepherd Dance-off" we had 125 people of all ages circled around the nave doing the Hokey-Pokey. (It's a long story, but the punchline is that shepherds were the great dancers of the First Century and earlier, because they had nothing but time to make music and develop the "moon-walk." At least, that's my guess. And it's not based any any historical information.)

I've already had two emails this morning saying that every time they hear the word shepherd they think of the Hokey-Pokey, and then they think of shepherds being the first to name the baby as the savior. (Which is the point of the shepherds in the birth of Christ story.) Not bad for a wedding dance.

Anyhow, Merry Christmas, and peace on earth.

* Worship Lab is a half-hour worship event designed to teach basics of the Christian faith to children.


May your tables be full, and your conversations be true.

Media Sh**storms and why there's no such thing as "objectivity"

Why do news show that hate Donald Trump put his speeches on their shows? Why do networks, seemingly divided on how they view the current president, cover things they don't like? We have to do some serious media critiquing these days.

In order to declare my biases, here are a few things you should know about my media activity:

1) I have never seen even one minute of American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, or Survivor. (All of those shows have been on television for at least fifteen years.)
2) I have not watched a non-cable news show since David Brinkley retired. (He left NBC for good in 1997.)
3) I have not watched cable news since 9/11.
4) I only watch sporting events on commercial (including cable) TV. (I cannot stand commercials, and only watch ones that star sports figures, but even that is under protest.)
5) Netflix is a gift from heaven. (and on demand cable shows)
6) I used to watch the Daily Show, but stridency is never a good replacement for humor.
7) I read the front pages of the Bismarck Tribune, the Startribune, and the Omaha World Herald every morning online. (mostly to compare weather.)

So, how do I keep up on news? I use the internet, and continue with NBC related websites. I never read articles, I only read headlines. On Huffington Post, I read occasional commentaries and articles. I also read Salon and Alternet, although they often seem to have the same pieces. Oh, and there's Facebook, which can't seem to help tell me what the latest crazy scheme is these days.

So that's where I am at. And I don't feel uniformed. I don't feel like I am woefully ignorant of what is going on in the world. Do I have all the details? No. Do I understand all the political intricacies? No. Do I care about my country? Yes. (In general, whenever I feel compelled to watch a news program or something, I read a book instead. Usually Walt Whitman's poetry.)

It doesn't take a genius to know things have changed. The angst and frustration of Facebook posts speaks to the level of dis-ease we have going around these days to people who should be the least dis-eased of all. I mean, they all have jobs, can pretty much eat what they want, and don't seem to have any problems outside of the ordinary addictions, despairs, and neglects that we all have. But yet--somehow--we have to worry about the Muslims who may immigrate here? What utter bullshit.

People ask me these days how I can stay so focused and calm? Simple. I turn off the TV, and don't click on many websites. But--and this is more important--I spend my time in conversation with actual people about actual problems or actual plans. I don't live in a world of "What if..." "If" is for children, and I am way beyond that. I don't believe in "if" anymore. Never really did.

That's why Jesus is so important to me. He took away all the "ifs" that are part of life and made them "is." I am loved. (not "if" I am loved.) I am saved. (not "if" I am saved.) Because of what God did in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit I have been freed to eliminate all the "ifs" in my life, and in our world. That is the gift of faith: to live as you are (whatever that is), not as "if" you are...

Of course, I am not as true, honest, healthy, helpful, good, or whatever as I could be. But that's not God's fault...that's just me not trusting the humanity I have been given. Not trusting that I am the human I am. For me, it's never "if," it's always "when"--for both the good and the bad, and I don't worry about either.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

P.S. This is one of my favorite songs from the 1970s.

On the Road Again...

My job these days is to go to places that don't have a pastor, and guide those congregations through the transition of calling a new pastor. It's temporary each time, and I am not allowed to be the regularly called pastor at any place where I am the interim. As the crew where I am at now (First Lutheran Church, Blair, NE) has begun the process to call a new pastor, my time here is coming to an end.

In some ways I am fortunate to know the end is approaching. I imagine this is what people who are retiring may experience. (I don't get to retire. I just pack my three boxes of stuff, leave a place on Sunday, and start somewhere new on Monday.) This is my last "whatever...," I probably won't see you again; all the stuff that comes with the job of pastor at a place where I won't be in a few months.

It happened last night, as a quarterly meeting was scheduling its next meeting date. There's a better than 75% chance I won't be here for it. I didn't even put it down in my phone at first; although, on second thought I did...you never know.But I will soon be saying goodbye to this group of Christians and moving on to say hello to another group of Christians. And in between there is the road...

The road I travel is not one for those who need stability. The road I travel is not for those who need to sleep in their own bed every night. The road I travel is for the curious. The traveler. The one who always wants to see what's around the next bend. I won't stop until I'm dead, I assume.

Once my brother and I were drinking and visiting all his fellow bartenders in various dives throughout Minneapolis. After about our fifth stop I said to him, "you sure know a lot of dive bars in this town." He laughed, and then said, "Yes. But I know the only in this town. You know them in about ten towns." He's right. So I decided to make a list. Here are the town I can remember where I have been to at least 5 different dive bars. These are bars that may serve food but probably don't. This does not includes places like Applebees or other chains. Most of these bars are named for the owners or their ex-wives. Let's see if I can get to ten towns:
1. Minneapolis, MN
2. St. Paul, MN (my hometown)
3. St. Peter, MN (my college town)
4. Chicago, IL
5. Los Angeles, CA
6. Bismarck, ND
7. Austin, TX
8. Memphis, TN
9. New Orleans, LA
10. Tampa, FL

Made it. And I got a few more--like Bozeman, MT, wonderful scenery for dive bars. But as my brother noted, you don't get to that many places without going on the road. So I take my friends (Jesus and the Holy Spirit), and drive to wherever the next congregation is. Here's my theme song.



May your tables be full and all your conversations be true.

Do Not Succumb to bigotry and fear

It is tempting to let our fear, bigotry, prejudice, and anger rule our judgement about what is going on these days in the world. For one thing, we're not used to all the confusion, chaos, and rapid change. We had it pretty well in this country for about 50 years, and we lost the collective consciousness of what life is all about. I mean, we purposefully built housing developments designed to make us forget about reality for a while. The great media critic Neal Postman called this "amusing ourselves to death," in the 1970s.

But now the world has caught up to us, and our little suburban enclaves have become festering cesspools of racism and hatred. The very places we built to keep out all the problems of the world have just become another venue for the problems of the world to play out, often in their extremism. For me, when the Sikh temple and some of its adherents were attacked in Brookfield, WI ( a suburb of Milwaukee), I knew everything I had growing up was over for good.

Of course, over 30 years ago my roommate in college told me a story about when he was 6. (That would have been 1969). His dad had to talk him out of the fear that he was never going to be able to have a house and home like this, and it made him sad. (My roommate is an exceptionally intuitive person, and this is not his most profound things he's shared with me. He has more.) But if Brookfield, WI can start harboring the violence and frustration that is so much a part of today's world, it's safe to say the "American Dream" is over. Get used to it.

For me, it all started with Columbine. Climbing into the pulpit that Sunday morning after the shooting at Columbine high school was the toughest day of preaching I ever had. A few years later, after 9/11, I was much more prepared to preach, even the the tragedy was on such a larger scale. The neighborhood stories I tell are just memories of a time we can never have back. Grandparents with pensions and healthcare, parents with decent jobs, and kids who actually learned about life in school, are family stories for the fairy tales of our future. Those days aren't coming back.

Of course, now that we know that so much of those days were built on repression, degradation of the environment, willful hatred of others, and bloated self-aggrandizement, who'd really want to go back? We can't let our fears and depressions cause our to lose our souls. Jesus once said, "What does it profit you to gain the whole world, if you lose your soul?" (Our current presidential candidates, especially in the GOP, have truly ignored this advice. Don't vote for any of them unless they repent of such hatred, greed, and fraud. Why vote for someone who only wants to steal from you?)

I, as much as anybody, have lost a lot in this world. As the world has caught up to me, my white, male, middle-class upbringing has been seen as the problem, not the solution--and I have to agree. And it's no fun being turned down for scholarships so that women or people of color get an equal opportunity. But that's okay for me, as I want to live in a world where everyone has a chance. I don't want to live in a world where I succeed based not on who I am, but rather what I am. I am more than the circumstances of my birth...and so is everyone else.

And that is what our current chaos seems to have forgotten. We are ALL children of God, and people of color, women, those differently-abled, those of non-traditional genders and sexuality, everyone basks in the light of God's grace and glory. And perhaps I've had to move aside so that others have room, but one thing I have learned is that it is more fun when we are all together. I'm glad to be part of the universe...and I hope to keep my soul as I'm in it.

May your tables be full, and your conversations be true.

Sometimes a sermon is a just a joke

What do you want to get out of a sermon? If you have to hear one, what would you want to get from a sermon? Do you want to learn something? Do you want to be moved in your faith? Do you want to feel good about yourself? What might you look for?

I look for a way to  an idea about what God might be doing in the world? What kind of things does God find interesting? How does God behave? I'm always interested in this quest.

So in this sermon we see how God is NOT working or what does NOT interest God. God is not about ritual and having to do things in order for God to love us. God loves us, and that changes us. Sometimes it's a simple as that.

Here's a sermon: did you get what you wanted from it?




May your tables be full and your conversations be true.