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“The Lazarus Narrative”
On the Fifth Sunday in Lent, many Christians will hear the report of Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave. It is recorded in Chapter 11 of the Gospel of John, linked here rather than paste here a long text over which you’ll likely skip and skim. …Did you read or play it? You really should.…
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Non-Hoops March Madness
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea make a noise and all that is therein. Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the LORD. (Psalm 96:11-12, New Coverdale Version) We are in the annual tug…
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Yes, There’s Evil
Yes, there’s evil. No, I’m not going to pelt you with a Walt Whitman-esque litany of all the ugly stuff, real, imagined or concocted for extra views & clicks, that you see every time your eyes veer screenward. The screen grab above came from an email I received from the Social Security Administration. I’m old…
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In Him We Might
Last night I prayed Psalm 106, which included Remember me, O LORD, according to the favor that you show to your people; O visit me with your salvation, That I may see the felicity of your chosen, and rejoice in the gladness of your people, and give thanks with your inheritance.(verses 4-5) After almost four…
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You Need a Hero?
Ah, those golden days of Euro-made Steve Reeves Hercules flicks. Got to thinking about heroes the other night. I caught an episode of Law & Order, something I do less and less because the show’s become preachy about “issues.” But I still have a soft spot for it and record the episodes so I can…
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I Feel the Light Again
When last I blogged, I described my winter sun feeling. Actually, the lack of feeling as the very bright day star was all-kinds-of-seen but not-at-all felt through the frigid air. I likened my spiritual state to that; aware of God’s reality but not feeling his presence. During the last week of Advent, God graced me…
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Shiny Happy Valley of the Shadow
Jerry Seinfeld did some stand up in Sioux Falls a few years ago. He riffed on our habit of talking about the weather. So indulge me (I’ll get into the spiritual stuff too). We’re having some actual autumn here. That’s a thing for us because spring and fall are too often too short preludes to…
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…by his faith…
I imagined that decades of Holocaust documentaries, dramas, books and my own visits to Dachau and Yad Vashem had me innoculated against strong emotional reactions to presentations about the Shoah. I was wrong. Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein present a jarring look at the Holocaust in a global and in particular American context.…
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Location, Location, Location
My dogs kept waking me up the other night. Maybe God appointed them to the task, because a fruitful time of reading and prayer ensued. What resulted was a stream of Biblical consciousness on Facebook. It started with awareness that Jesus washed his followers’ feet while knowing that the Father had given all things into…
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Was 9/11 the Last Sign of “Christian America”?
The arguments fly back and forth about America as a “Christian nation.” On the right, it is an imagining of the past: an appeal for return to a once muscular moral order that, in the model of the Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy, brought national prosperity as the reward for obedience to standards revealed by God.…
Northern Plains Anglican
Just call me NPA
Northern Plains Anglican 