Remember the Titans ranks high on any list of sport’s movies. At the beginning of the film, the team loads the bus heading to Gettysburg for training camp. Head Coach Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, hand his offensive coaches the rather thin playbook. He responds to their comment on the playbook by saying, “I […]
Search my heart – Lord, you see every motivation and attitude in my heart. The pride that causes me to rely on myself rather than asking for help. The arrogance that places myself ahead of others. The bitterness and resentment I hold against those who hurt me. The anxiety that keeps from me from experiencing
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A scene you cannot easily escape. The clear night sky breaks for a singular object. Our eyes immediately find the moon up above. For a few brief moments, the overwhelming darkness has been replaced by the magnificent light. It’s a scene like this that causes us to pause. I find myself most days trying to
Few songs can capture our deepest emotions combined with a virtuoso quality of musical genius. Brian Wilson’s God Only Knows timelessly fuses these two qualities. The music website Pitchfork considered this Beach Boys’ song the greatest of the decade in their 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960’s. A biopic movie Love and Mercy on Wilson renewed interest in
The same conversations replay over and over in our minds… Each hurtful criticism resurfaces. What we really want to tell people out of anger and frustration. The alluding to-do list seems to never finish. Not to mention the anxiety and insecurities that haunt us on a daily basis. We confess to You our “stuck-ness.” You
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How often do you hear the phrase, the exception to the rule? This concept helps us thoughtfully delineate between the letter and spirit of the law. Problematically, people can come up with a lot of exceptions. As soon as a rule has multiple exceptions, we begin to ask why do have the rule in the first
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Today’s church-wide Advent reading came from Luke 1:46-55. Mary’s prayer (the Magnificat) responds to the shocking news of the coming of the Savior. Luke captures the surprising arrival of Immanuel; this Savior comes in the context of humility and mercy. A vast different arrival than what the religious contemporaries of that time imagined. He comes as a
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Touchdowns for Jesus and Other Signs of the Apocalypse initiates the complex conversation of sports and theology. The author, Rev. Marcia W. Mount Shoop, exceptionally qualifies for examining this topic. Not only as an educated theologian, but she brings twenty years of perspective from her husband coaching in the NFL and NCAA. Apocalypse in the
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Recently, I shared with a friend my struggle practicing silence and solitude. Like most problems, I began to make excuses based on busyness and distractions. My mind can run a thousand miles per hour without ever taking time to stop. This conversation began to point to a deeper issue. He began to ask me a
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“When a pilgrim visits a sacred place and the hears the story of what happened there, something mystical happens.” Brother Kenny from Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron. “That was where…” begins the story of place. Parents, grandparents, family and friends point out places because a significant event happened. National monuments mean so much because
