This past Sunday was in the midst of Memorial Day weekend and in between all the grilling, drinking, graduations, and festivities, I spent some time thinking about freedom. It is a regular part of the vocabulary when talking about sacrifices made by members of the American military to speak of the “fight for freedom”. And I am grateful for their service and faithfulness to our nation. Still, there are other ways to “fight” for freedom. In my sermon at Mira Vista United Chu

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. – John Milton (1608-1674) Want to change your life? Change your practice. Want to be loved? Change your heart. Want the world to be different? Change your mind. But don’t expect anyone else (or your church or your family or your community or your whatever) to fix you or change things to make your life better. Our grasp of heaven is always in our hands and we are in the hands of God whose

Guilt is only useful insofar as it points to a change that you can make. Otherwise just let it go. – Beverly Wildung Harrison, (1932-2012) feminist Christian ethicist, professor, and scholar Just how much do you let God be God? I admit that I’m not very good at doing the “let go and let God” thing. I was raised to be independent and self-reliant with several helpings of Texas stubborn swirled in to boot. But my heart stood still when Bev Harrison made the comment above in

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. – Anatole France, French poet (1844-1924) The spiritual discipline of “letting go” is one of the most difficult to master. We like to hang on to our “stuff”. I have a recurring dream that I am climbing through an enormous obstacle course when I have the realization that I have left my suitcase behind. As I cl

December 7th, 2012, Pearl Harbor Day This morning while riding MUNI I met a WWII vet who joined two days after Pearl Harbor. He was a jovial guy in really terrific shape for his late 80’s. Everyone on the 37 Corbett thanked him for his service and he beamed. Just beamed from ear to ear. I asked him what his job was when he was in the Navy and he said he worked on amphibious assaults delivering tanks and troops onto islands throughout the Pacific. When I mentioned that our