tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-366589222008-06-16T16:22:38.122-04:00GracenotesAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-87739906495624114152008-06-16T16:19:00.002-04:002008-06-16T16:22:38.162-04:00Reviving and Surviving Election Day SermonsElection Day sermons represent a venerable but long extinct New England tradition. What are they, and might we dare to preach them today? And, if so, how might ministers do this – and still keep their jobs? In their day – and this stretched from the early colonial period through the later 19th century in Massachusetts – such sermons depended on assumptions that no longer make much sense to us.Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-72728225546811442062008-06-03T13:49:00.003-04:002008-06-03T13:55:45.957-04:00The Wisdom of AntsIn my ongoing reading adventures with the five-year-olds at Old South Church, we found ourselves this week thinking our way into the tiny world of ants. They’d just been to the Franklin Park Zoo, where they delighted in the big animals – “lions and tigers and bears – oh my!” To find our way into the ants’ lives, and the story I’d chosen for the week, we tried together to imagine what it would Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-68310377325106794512008-05-20T18:02:00.000-04:002008-05-20T18:03:25.242-04:00Fears that Bind and BlindEach week during this sabbatical year, I’ve led the “Friday story circle,” reading a picture book with the five-year-olds at Old South Church’s preschool. They are a group still articulate with wonder, and vulnerable to the unexpected, unclear about the boundaries we finally learn as we negotiate adolescence between the imagined and the real. They want to know, every week, if the stories “Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-55973266090113142622008-05-12T12:15:00.003-04:002008-05-12T12:20:09.034-04:00Disorientation and HospitalityThere is something in us that doesn’t like to be lost. We want to know where we are, and how we can get “home” again. We’re afraid when we get disoriented, which in its literal root means: “un-east-ed,” confused about the oriens or “rising sun.” Can anything good come of such experiences? We all remember times when we were lost, and I mean really lost. Where we lost our bearings, and couldnAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-30022051184234116942008-05-05T09:58:00.001-04:002008-05-05T10:00:22.550-04:00The Place Where the Spirit Erupts"The call of beauty – of the sort of beauty that grips our sight to the point of sometimes closing our eyes shut – summons our voice to speak, that it may be heard within our voice as a call and therefore actually be seen. This voice, our own, the human voice where we listen forever to what beckons to us, is the very place where Spirit erupts into the world."
Jean-Louis Chrétien, The Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-16369319120170604652008-04-28T13:36:00.001-04:002008-04-28T13:38:25.963-04:00Solitude and Revolution “No matter where in the world he may be, no matter what may be his power of protest, or his means of expression, the poet finds himself ultimately where I am. Alone, silent, with the obligation of being very careful not to say what he does not mean, not to let himself be persuaded to say merely what another wants him to say, not to say what his own past work has led others to expect him to say.Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-88956876349195852282008-04-07T11:14:00.001-04:002008-04-07T11:16:52.135-04:00Right Prophets and WrongWhat a strange twist in this year’s celebration of political carnival. Now that a Democrat has emerged as a front-runner who is a person of passionate faith, evangelical in fervor and progressive in vision, it seems he isn’t quite right after all. Not for what he believes (or doesn’t), but for what his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, said in a sermon. If you missed hearing about this, you’reAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-53582419582541745732008-03-30T15:01:00.001-04:002008-03-30T15:06:29.387-04:00A Story that RhymesEach week during my sabbatical, I’ve been leading a story circle with the five-year-old preschoolers at Old South Church in Boston. We recently began our time together by talking about what makes a poem what it is. One of the kids hit it right on the head: “It’s a story that rhymes!” Of course not all do. But many do tell stories, and they often rhyme. We practiced some rhyming words Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-19247328567598600162008-02-06T15:28:00.000-05:002008-02-06T15:31:28.310-05:00Art, Metaphor, and the Politics of RevivalTo sit and dream, to sit and read,
To sit and learn about the world
Outside our world of here and now –
Our problem world –
To dream of vast horizons of the soul
Through dreams made whole,
Unfettered, free – help me!
All you who are dreamers too,
Help me to make
Our world anew.
I reach out my dreams to you.
- Langston Hughes
Reading stories with very young children can bring us faceAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-78465452687794209062008-01-29T12:08:00.000-05:002008-01-29T12:12:22.877-05:00Six impossible things before breakfastWinter under cultivation
Is as arable as Spring
Emily Dickinson
Sometimes, a poem is worth more than a long sermon, both those we hear and those we preach! I thought of this when reading a story to a group of preschool children recently at Old South Church. They are so ready, these four- and five-year-olds, to be enchanted, to make believe, to fashion sometimes outrageous stories into Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-70419632048476232102008-01-13T20:53:00.000-05:002008-01-13T20:55:58.621-05:00The Dream of a KingThe New Year is now upon us, and this year the news is full of commentary, predictions, and broodings about the presidential primaries. Even in Europe, where I spent the last few weeks, the papers and television news programs have been saturated with this story: first with Iowa, which the Germans describe as the state with "more pigs than people," and then New Hampshire, with "Super Tuesday" Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-50228966620108011612007-12-20T11:16:00.000-05:002007-12-20T11:17:56.417-05:00Christmas Presents or Presence?What is becoming of God these days? One might well wonder. When asked in a recent Advent children’s sermon I heard what Christmas was all about, one bright-eyed little boy sounded forth immediately: “Presents!” Or so we adults all thought, and laughed as we are often wont to do in such moments – because of the candor, the simplicity, and the innocent joy with which children express themselvesAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-31839337985081471052007-12-07T15:03:00.000-05:002007-12-07T15:12:22.435-05:00Advent vigilAdvent is a season when we pray for God’s coming among us, with an audacity that borders on the absurd. God, coming here and now? It all seems a most unlikely expectation, now as "then" in a forlorn corner of the Roman Empire, Bethlehem. What is it that this season re-minds us of, in its call to watch and wait, to keep vigil? What does it mean, in Advent, that we find ourselves as a people Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-33097875677575798622007-10-24T13:18:00.001-04:002007-11-05T10:41:11.257-05:00Political FaithA few days ago, I received a discount coupon from a vendor for use in their store. I’d not asked for this coupon, mind you, and was surprised to discover that it offered me a rather large discount on a future purchase – one I’d not intended to make, but now might. Such is the lure of a bargain! And it came from a bookstore, for Pete’s sake; they knew my weakness, no doubt because they are Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-38821798224644912872007-10-04T16:04:00.000-04:002007-10-04T16:20:31.655-04:00"Thy Kingdom come . . .on earth"“. . . as it is in heaven”: it is strange that so little is said, these days, about heaven, a theme that lies at the heart of the prayer we call “The Lord’s.” At least, this seems to be so among the mainline churches, remaining a staple of the religious vocabulary in the fundamentalist churches as the meek counterpoint to the strongly leveraged threats of hell. But in our sort of Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-28131651457687829102007-09-18T13:50:00.000-04:002007-09-18T14:02:07.227-04:00FireJeremiah 23:29: "Is not my word like fire?"Luke 12:49: "I have come to bring fire to the earth."Have you heard about a book called "The Gospel of Thomas"? In 1945, archaeologists found a copy of a text in Egypt that goes by the above title. The Gospel of Thomas consists entirely of proverbs by and teachings of Jesus; there are no stories in it. Did Jesus actually say any, some, or all of the Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-62056073835080253202007-09-14T13:00:00.001-04:002007-09-14T13:12:00.093-04:00Academic Convocation Prayer, Fall 2007Hidden Singer,
who teaches the birds their melodies
and whispers tunes into the ears of musical geniuses,
Come by here.
So that we might hear your harmony and live with hope.
O Creator of the world that is "very good"
and from whom everything that is beautiful and true issues,
today you might hear us use the word "best."
O Ancient of Days,
today you might hear us use the word "oldest."
O You whoAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-40275255871391537232007-09-05T12:32:00.000-04:002007-09-05T12:33:04.809-04:00You Are What You Desire. . .which is the message, implicit or brazen, that drives the advertising machinery of the modern "surplus" economy. But what it if were also true that our identity is essentially shaped, for better or worse, by the nature not primarily of our desires but rather of our desiring? As we grow older and perhaps wiser, we come to see that the most important existential questions * despite our Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-30440664335591298432007-06-06T14:44:00.001-04:002007-06-06T14:47:04.979-04:00Buried BiblesMay 31, 1934: On that day, seventy-three years ago, a group of lay persons and pastors gathered in a city in northwestern Germany named Barmen, and signed a statement of faith drafted by the young theologian Karl Barth. In the opening lines of what came to be called the "Barmen Declaration," this confession declared obedience to Christ as the standard requiring resistance to Hitler and the Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-9558966918754032052007-05-31T12:41:00.001-04:002007-05-31T12:52:42.470-04:00Prayer of Dedication for the new Wilson ChapelMay 18, 2007
(People spread out from ends of rows to touch walls and hold hands with others)
O God, this hour we call upon you anew
In this place:
Father, Word and Holy Spirit;
Mother, Wisdom, Breath of Fire;
You who spoke in light to frame the worlds,
And meet us in their wonder,
wonder at what we understand and wonder at what we do not;
You who Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-78778801061059897822007-05-10T17:03:00.001-04:002007-05-10T17:07:13.604-04:00FaithWhen I was a child, we often visited our grandparents in the country. A river divided their mountain town into two sections. A swinging bridge united the two sections of that town, Oneida, Kentucky.
That swinging bridge terrified me. That ramshackle, jerry-rigged construction of cables and boards, swaying from side to side and undulating up and down in the wind above the South Fork of the Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-90278995668024669962007-05-02T16:01:00.000-04:002007-05-02T16:07:36.735-04:00A Reflection on the Book of Psalms as a WholeI want you to imagine the entire Psalter as a single narrative, divided into 150 chapters.
It is the story of a human life. Maybe not any human life, but a particular life, a life in tune with the peculiar contradictions of life with God. It is a life dominated by petition early, by request, by neediness. There are more psalms of petition and of lament in the first half of the Psalter than in Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-58232658479457511142007-04-25T10:54:00.001-04:002007-04-25T10:59:09.917-04:00LoveThis scientist had this theory, that there is a force in the universe that binds things together: proton to electron, moon to globe, and solar to system. It is a kind of cosmic gravity that pulls everything together. If there is an energy in the universe that impels separation, then the energy mentioned above is the elasticity that allows the accordion of our expanding universe to stay intact Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-36925166717526323472007-04-19T11:24:00.001-04:002007-04-19T11:29:54.005-04:00Gracenotes on Virginia TechTuesday night, American Idol began with a somber word of condolence from Ryan Seacrest to the grieving members of the Virginia Tech community and to a nation baffled by the violence that took place there. He used the expression, "tragic events," without further explanation. That is all well and good: it is a family show, after all. And it's Ryan Seacrest, for heaven's sake.
But one is left to Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-68435817832958984512007-04-18T13:08:00.001-04:002007-04-18T13:20:14.932-04:00Prayer for Yom Ha-ShoahThe following prayer was used in an ANTS chapel service on April 17, 2007 where we remembered the Holocaust. Following this prayer, the assembled group from ANTS walked in silence to Berenson Hall of Hebrew College where we joined their community in a joint worship service.
"The Holocaust confronts us with unanswerable questions. But let us agree to one principle: no statement, theological or Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.com