A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

Enough with this 110%, that ain't nothing compared to 101%! Give 101% Thanks to Don, via Ed, for this one. God Bless!

As we begin to form our own opinion and recommendation, here is one, that isn't so surprising, but is, none the less helpful. Check this Link.

My Colleague, Jim Gertmenian, pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church just emailed this to me.  It is quite moving, and inspiring.  How can we at Gethsemane move our food ministry to begin to explore our role and efforts in resolving global hunger? The video is on the The World Bank's website . Watch it and let me know what you think.

It was a beautiful evening, my friends had all been drinking and partying and having a great time.   For whatever reason I wasn’t in the mood.   I wasn’t interested in shots or chasers or alcohol.   Which was odd, because this was the last night for a year that I would not be carrying the great responsibility of others on my shoulders.   I would return the next afternoon to college students, mostly freshman, wide eyed and completely unsure of themselves or so sure of themselves you wanted to punch them.   So it was unusual for me to not want to be part of the party. I walked down to the dock on the lake, it was dark and the stars were out in full force.   You know when you go to the wilderness in Minnesota it usually is on a lake or in the midst of trees.   Wilderness in Minnesota is vastly different from the wilderness Jesus experienced.   Grouse, deer, poplar trees, walleye, bass, these are the things I think of when I think of wilderness, th...

Jonathon Goldstein is a radio personality who is often on the show “This American Life” and has his own podcast called Wiretap. Recently he was talking about his sisters new baby boy and the effect it had on him and his family. Now, he’s Jewish, so there is not all that much to say about Christian Baptism, but he does say some profound things about love. He said on a recent podcast, “How strange to find yourself falling in love with someone you only just met, and how endlessly fascinating it is to watch someone getting used to being alive, though perhaps even more fascinating will be watching someone getting used to becoming a member of our family.” Those of you who have witnessed children being born, who have raised children yourself, can understand this fascination of watching someone getting used to being alive, and watching someone getting used to becoming a new member of a family. It takes time, as he suggests, it is not something that happens over night. Our beings...

An interesting video my uncle sent me. Quite powerful actually. Lost Generation

When I was asked to stand up and speak about the Shelf of Hope today, and my students’ involvement in it, I joked to the Shelf team that I didn’t feel that I was qualified, and that public speaking made me feel a bit itchy. In truth, I speak publicly quite often at Breck, and I actually just returned from a conference in which I gave my first presentation to a group of complete strangers. I guess what caused me anxiety was the feeling that something like “ending hunger” seems like something that I just can’t do. How can I stand up here and make the case that we are making a difference at our little food shelf? It’s too big! There are too many variables, too many problems, too many things outside of our control, and besides, I have a job. You have a job! We have things to do! Whew! I settled my mind a bit. I slept on it. I thought about my students, and the people that we serve. I knew what I wanted to say. But, first, a little background. At Breck, all upper school students participate...

What is a vision? What is the purpose of having a vision? Every time new leadership enters a situation or a context, that new leader offers up a new vision. I did it when I first arrived at Gethsemane and again when we realized things were getting tough. Thought it is not defined perfectly, or finally for that matter, Food is our mission is a big part of the vision for Gethsemane. Attending the Diocesan Convention this past weekend the idea of vision was bandied about like a birdie on a badminton court. I heard a vision about a school of formation, about connecting congregational resources, about flat screen TV's. I heard a vision about the Diocesan offices getting out of the way and letting congregations connect and something or other. I left with a cold feeling in my gut, I left with deep worry about what the future holds. I left un-compelled, uninspired. I left spirit less. I had one spirit filled moment during convention, when Stephanie Spellers listed all the things t...

This coming Sunday’s Gospel reading is the story of Zacheaus. I stumbled across a commentary that suggested the “short in stature” bit didn’t so much describe Zacheaus’ height as it did his status among his friends and neighbors in society at the time. At first glance this doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but when you sit with the reading, you see that it shifts the entire meaning of the story. What I found most compelling about this was that it wasn’t so much Zacheaus’ sinful behavior that becomes the heart of the story, but rather the people who keep him from seeing Jesus. It is right near the blind man story in Luke, where the crowd tries to keep Bartimaeus from distracting Jesus. It seems the crowd is trying to monopolize to the best of their ability the time and attention of Jesus. Likewise we find that the NRSV’s version of the story, where Zacheaus states he will give half his possessions and he will pay back those he wronged is wrong. Turns out Zacheaus may have been doing t...

The beginning of the Gospel today notes that the healing of the ten lepers took place “on the way to Jerusalem.” In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem begins at Chapter 9, verse 51. For those keeping track, about 12 Sundays ago. In Luke’s Gospel Narrative, we have been journeying to Jerusalem with Jesus since mid July. The writer of the Gospel of Luke uses this time to share parables of Jesus, dig up information about Jesus’ journey, and to speak as thoroughly as possible about discipleship. Aside from being in the “region between Samaria and Galilee”, read the first verse of the Gospel, the village Jesus and the disciples are in is not identified. Its location and the description of the one who returns to thank Jesus as both a Samaritan and a foreigner is enough to set the scene for the writer of the Gospel of Luke. Some interesting history for you all, Samaria became “foreign” following Israel’s secession from the Davidic monarchy in 1 Kings 12 and the establishment of ...

We are the sheep we are the coin. For some it is the question of what the Bible is about. Is the Bible about our humanity, is it the story of who we are as God’s created people or is the Bible fundamentally about God, and God’s actions in history on behalf of God’s people? Is today’s Gospel about our response, stop running away from God, hiding from God, and open our hearts to God who is searching for us always, who is looking for us all the time and who loves us with reckless abandon? God is the shepherd, God is the woman, searching for us, looking for us while we wait, hidden, and hoping to be found. My hesitation with this interpretation of the Gospel comes in light of the Gospel we read weeks ago, about Jesus’ commissioning the disciples to go into towns before him, to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal, to me this sounds not unlike what this shepherd was doing, not unlike what this woman did to find her lost coin. We are called to be missionaries; we are called to heal the...

It is said that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. How bound to the earth are we as we try to reason ourselves into the air? One of my favorite songs is sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It is called “Why walk when you can fly”, it is a wonderfully light song that recognizes the great pains and troubles in the world yet asks, why walk when we all could fly. Why be burdened and held by the bonds of our fear and anxiety when we could let them all go and fly to soaring heights. Paul Tillich, a great theologian once wrote, “The burden Jesus wants to take for us is the burden of religion. It is the yoke of law imposed on people of His time by the religious leaders, the wise and understanding. Those who labor and are weary laden are those who are sighing under the yoke of the religious law. And He will give them the power to overcome religion and the law; the law Jesus gives them is a new being above religion. The thing they will learn from him is the victory over th...

I was standing in our driveway when I man approached me and asked, “Are you associated with the parish here, and the garden over there?” I responded, yes, and he let out an exasperated sigh, and said, “There were two men who stole a melon from the garden, I thought you should know that.” That’s what it’s there for, was my brief response. Our Garden is not there for us, it is there for us in that it is an opportunity to participate in God’s call to us for mission in our neighborhood. The fruits of our labors are meant for those who are willing to take the food from our garden. It is not ours. Food is our mission, and it will remain our mission for at least the next year. I want us to buy into this mission effort we are participating in, because there is nothing we have been called to do more clearly than this mission around food. God is in this work, God is clearly asking us to do this work. On Monday, the Junior class from Breck school walked into our sanctuary with bags of foo...

I am the sexiest man alive. Seriously, I am. When I was in college, attending my Sociology classes, I learned about this little phenomenon called a self fulfilling prophecy. As a joke, a couple of my friends and I decided to make our own outrageous self fulfilling prophecies. Mine was that I was the sexiest man alive. To this day, I look for opportunities to mention this fact to see what kind of reaction I get. Lately, I get responses that are very serious, usually short like, “No you’re not.” One of the enduring concepts of the Episcopal Church is the idea, “What we pray, shapes what we believe.” The things we pray week in and week out, day in and day out, shape what we believe. I haven’t done any scientific studies about this, and I have been told by some important people that this idea is a bad idea, but I really like it. The tradition of the Episcopal Church is one of small “c” catholic tradition. A tradition that embraces a great deal of diversity, in fact our diversity ...

I recently received an email from an organization, or a publisher that stated the following: "The old church met on Sunday mornings. Today’s church meets all day, every day, everywhere. Today’s most successful churches have a secret – they’re fulfilling their mission in part by enabling and growing an environment where church community and communication happens every day, in groups big and small, throughout the congregation." We will be working on the latter part of that this coming year. The constant, continuous communication of what it is our mission is about and opportunities to share in that mission. Food is still our mission, and it will remain our mission as we prepare for our work in stepping out from under the Diocesan Financial assistance we have been receiving the past five years. How will we live, what will it be like stepping out on our own into familiar, yet unknown territory. We are on our way, and it is exciting to think about what we can do as we continue...

I recently saw the movie “Salt”, starring Angelina Jolie. There is significant portion of the movie that was filmed at St. Bart’s in New York, the Episcopal Church we sent a delegation to for their annual conference a few years ago. It was actually the first time I had been able to see inside that Church, and what a cool looking church it is. I also received an email from Bill Tully, because I am on the mailing list, not because I know him, where he explained how it came to be that Salt was filmed in the Church. He closed his email with a poignant statement, “Opening the door for God is a privilege and a challenge, the very heart of our ministry, every day. That's the way of God's world, filled with vocation, opportunity - - and yes, temptation.” What does opening that door look like for you and for me? Is it vulnerability? Is it simple openness? Is it centered around justice? What does it look like in order to take the privilege and the challenge to open the door to G...

It is not often I am compared to, by the God I consider the source of all, the source of my life, it is not often I am, by the God I love, compared to a prostitute. And yet that is exactly what is happening in today’s Hosea reading. It is easy for us to extrapolate this out as a story about a prophet from long ago, a man who was called by God, but whose presence today is insignificant and impotent. But we cannot see the prophet Hosea in such a light, we must see his powerful actions in the light God meant us to see these words. To render these characters simply to the imagination cheapens the Good News of a Gospel that transforms all of human kind centuries later. The time of Hosea was difficult, God had delivered the Israelites from certain doom, from the slavery of Baal, God had offered up God’s self in service, in love and had done much for God’s chosen people. The people then, repaid God by having, as it says later in the book of Hosea, “No faith in the land”. This lack of fa...

The food here is amazing, and wonderful, and spectacular and perfect and yummy. Did I mention the food here is really good?

This is the view from the building most of our meetings take place in. It is quite beautiful here in wine country...

As some of you know, Brian McLaren will be with us in Minnesota for two days in September, the 21st and 22nd, to be exact. In preparation for his visit, and to ensure we get as much contextualized conversation as possible, we are asking Minnesota Episcopalians to blog. The blog is under construction at the moment, but can be found at www.episcopalspirit.com (or www.episcopalspirit.wordpress.com) Rather than ask a specif question, we are asking that you reflect on the following passage from the book of Wisdom (7:22-23) in context with the message of Brian McLaren's new book, "A New Kind of Christianity", which is essentially a series of essays n the ways Christianity as an institutionalized religion is changing. There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sue, free from anxiety, all powerful, overseeing all, and penetra...