the unlikely orange

note: i wrote these words back in 2017, after a series of tragedies.  you can see the original post here .  i have adapted these words to deal with the unthinkable gun violence perpetrated against people of color and children in our country in the last couple of weeks.  i share them here as a way to move us, as people of faith, to something more than just words, cynicism, or empty religious platitudes.    It has been a season of terrible tragedy.  And once again I have noticed in the news a trending phrase: thoughts and prayers.  It even has its own hashtag on twitter and other social media, but net necessarily in a good way.  People are understandably tired of hearing about others’ thoughts and prayers, when that is often only a thinly-veiled way of saying that our only obligation to those who suffer is a brief moment of silence, or nothing more than a tweet or public statement.  The truth is that, for those of us who follow Jesus, much is ...

i was recently asked to offer my compelling reasons for why i would want to remain in the united methodist church, even as there is division within, a new denomination forming, and an inevitable divorce coming at some point in the future.   here was my response: Why stay United Methodist?  My compelling reasons. It’s home.     For many of us, this is our home.  It is the legacy that was handed to us by our great-grandparents, our grandparents, or our parents.  It was the community who welcomed us into the world with casseroles on our kitchen tables, and baptism blankets.  It was the United Methodists who taught us flannel-board truths and showed us that Jesus loves all the little children: red, yellow, black and white.  It was the United Methodists who gave us our first Bibles, who journeyed with us as we learned what it means to confirm the promises of our baptism.  It was the United Methodists who affirmed our gifts, who let us as...

  "the broken path: station 7 - Jesus dies on the cross" gregory a. milinovich broken glass, ceramics, tiles on old farm window march, 2021 this year during lent, i was inspired to design a set of eight pieces of art for a "stations of the cross" installation, which is currently on display outside on the front lawn at St. Paul's UMC and Wesley Foundation at 230 E. College Ave. in State College, PA.  it will be there on display until april 3rd, 2021.  if you aren't able to see it in person, you can see the whole collection here.  i've also decided to write a bit about each one, so that you can find out a little "behind the scenes" information for each one, and hear a little about my inspiration.  here are the posts for station 1 , station 2 , station 3 , station 4 , station 5 , and station 6 .  this seventh station of the cross is meant to urge us to consider the very last breaths of Jesus' life.  no more do we linger on the agony and tortur...

  "the broken path: station 6 - Jesus is nailed to the cross" rev. gregory a. milinovich broken glass, tiles, stones, sea glass on old farm window march, 2021 this year during lent, i was inspired to design a set of eight pieces of art for a "stations of the cross" installation, which is currently on display outside on the front lawn at St. Paul's UMC and Wesley Foundation at 230 E. College Ave. in State College, PA.  it will be there on display until april 3rd, 2021.  if you aren't able to see it in person, you can see the whole collection here.  i've also decided to write a bit about each one, so that you can find out a little "behind the scenes" information for each one, and hear a little about my inspiration.  here are the posts for station 1 , station 2 , station 3 , station 4 , and station 5 .  in this post, we turn our attention to station 6, in which Jesus is nailed to the cross.  the whole idea of a body being nailed to a piece of wood...

  "The Broken Path: Station 5 - Jesus is Stripped" gregory a. milinovich broken glass, tiles on old farm window march, 2021 this year during lent, i was inspired to design a set of eight pieces of art for a "stations of the cross" installation, which is currently on display outside on the front lawn at St. Paul's UMC and Wesley Foundation at 230 E. College Ave. in State College, PA.  it will be there on display until april 3rd, 2021.  if you aren't able to see it in person, you can see the whole collection here .  i've also decided to write a bit about each one, so that you can find out a little "behind the scenes" information for each one, and hear a little about my inspiration.  here are the posts for station 1 , station 2 , station 3 , and station 4 .  in this post we are turning to station 5, in which we remember that Jesus was stripped of his clothes, and of his dignity.  in this piece, i wanted to create a sense of nakedness without being...

  "The Broken Path: Station 4 - Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem" gregory a. milinovich broken glass, tile, sea glass on old farm window march, 2021 this year during lent, i was inspired to design a set of eight pieces of art for a "stations of the cross" installation, which is currently on display outside on the front lawn at St. Paul's UMC and Wesley Foundation at 230 E. College Ave. in State College, PA.  it will be there on display until april 3rd, 2021.  if you aren't able to see it in person, you can see the whole collection here .   i've also decided to write a bit about each one, so that you can find out a little "behind the scenes" information for each one, and hear a little about my inspiration.  here are the posts for station 1 , station 2 , and station 3 .  today we turn our attention to station 4: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.  we meet these women in luke 23:27-31, where we are told they are following him, along with a huge...

  "The Broken Path: Station 3 - Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross" by gregory a. milinovich broken glass and sea glass on an old farm window march, 2021 in case you are just tuning in, i sharing a series of posts about eight different stations of the cross which i created on old windows with bits of broken glass.  you can see the first station here , and the second one here .  (you can also view the whole series, with the prayers, questions for meditation, and a video version here ).   this station is about Simon of Cyrene, whom we read about in Mark 15:21-23, with only the barest details.  he was charged with helping Jesus to carry the cross, but in the end, it was a helpless kind of helping, really.  the man Simon was helping - Jesus - was still about to die, no matter what.  there was nothing Simon could do to really change anything.   this is the same idea lifted up in the prayer for this station by Padraig O'Tuama from "Da...

  "The Broken Path: Station 2 - Jesus Takes Up the Cross" gregory a. milinovich broken glass and tile on old farm window march, 2021 in these art installation i have really worked on creating a sense of brokenness.  my hope was to invite the viewer to consider both the brokenness of Jesus and the brokenness of self.  i want to conjure up images of the broken flesh of Jesus, and the broken spirits of those who bear the weight of too many burdens put on them.  in this station, in particular, i wanted to really convey that sense of broken flesh and spirits and sinews stretched thin.  as i mentioned in my post on the first station , each station is partially inspired by prayers by Padraig O'Tuama in "Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community" (copyright 2017, canterbury press, norwich, london).  here is the prayer i used as inspiration for this station:  Burdened God, who bore the weight of wood on torn shoulders, We pray for the torn and the burdened, th...

  during this season of lent, at the church i serve, we've been talking about brokenness.  we've been looking at the ways that our journey is often a broken journey, full of missteps, sidetracks, and dead ends.  and yet, we have been seeing, as clearly as ever, that those broken places are exactly the same places where grace grows.  the cracks are where the light shines through.   so, as a way to continue to reflect on this brokenness, the worship team thought we might do an art installation outside, on the church property, of the stations of the cross, but in a way that expressed not only the brokenness of Jesus' body and journey to the tomb, but also the brokenness of our world and our hearts.  using something i made several years ago, i thought we might be able to use old windows and broken glass to help tell the story.   so, in the end, i made eight separate stations of the cross, each one on an old window that came from an old farmhouse...

"isn't that wonderful?" he always asks/asserts with a childlike smile, every time i talk to him.  it's as if he's barely even aware that he's asking it, the positivity just oozing out of him, uncontainable, a product of his relentlessly consistent approach to life. i'm talking about Joe Humphreys, the subject of an excellent 2019 documentary film, and the frequent holder of a seat about 7 or 8 pews back to the right, aisle seat, at St. Paul's United Methodist Church and Wesley Foundation, where i am blessed to serve as the pastor.  when i get a chance to greet him, he'll often ask about my family, or how things are going with me, and when i answer, he'll respond with that characteristic smile, "isn't that wonderful?"  it's impossible not to feel a sense of wonder when you talk to Joe.  for one thing, he's 90 years old/young, but surprisingly spry in body, mind, and heart.  for another thing, he is a bit of a celebrity...

"What if it doesn't hold me?" I didn't ask it out loud, but this was the question bouncing around my brain as I stood on top of the Fraser building a week ago, with the wind whipping furiously, my toes on the ledge, and my heels hanging off the edge. I stood there thirteen stories up, with a tangle of ropes and equipment attached both to me and, by an intricate web, to a network of pulleys and structures all intended to keep me completely safe. I listened carefully, with the wind whistling through the holes in my helmet, as my instructor said, "now just lean back, and it will hold you." Yeah, but what if it doesn't?!? This "what if" question has a great deal to do with trust. I recognize this question from my life. I find myself asking it, sometimes unconsciously, about all sorts of things. What if my kids get hurt? What if my loved one gets really sick? What if our safety net isn't substantial enough? What if we can't affo...

“Leftovers again?” It’s a refrain that is sometimes heard in our house, especially after Shannon has prepared several great meals in a row. In those times, we often have a collage of containers in the refrigerator, filled with various elements from the dinners of the last few days: broccoli in the glass container with the red lid, brown rice in the green tupperware, and some pork chops wrapped in foil, just to name a few. Sometimes there is enough of this mishmosh of food to last us for several meals, which is when the complaining usually begins, “Leftovers, again?” I was thinking about this on Sunday as we thought about God’s abundance. We remembered story after story in the Bible in which we discover a God of abundance and overflowing goodness. One of the stories was the feeding of the 5,000, in which a huge crowd (some estimate it was as many as 15,000, since women and children wouldn’t have made the count) was fed by a meager 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Perhaps the m...

back in early june, as part of an overall effort to get more healthy, i started jogging.  i was just kind of walking and running a couple of miles to start off, but over the last 4 months i've been staying consistent, which has helped me to run faster and further, lose some weight, and just generally be healthier.  on fridays, which are my day off, i try to run a longer distance, and i've been adding a mile every other week or so, which meant that today i ran 9 miles in about 99 minutes, which isn't great, but it isn't terrible, either.  mostly, it just feels good to be doing it, and to feel healthier in a general sense, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and so on.  but there is one area that i haven't felt great about.  professionally, these last 8 months have been, without doubt, some of the most difficult in my 21+ years of full-time ministry.  now don't get me wrong: i love my job.  i really do.  it is so much more than just a job f...

"bread alone" mixed media collage (bread tabs, cut paper, acrylic paint, glue on stretched canvas) february, 2019 gregory a. milinovich "one does not live by bread alone," said Jesus, when he was out in his own spiritual wilderness, feeling hungry and tempted to use his power to satisfy his own wishes.  the voice of the tempter came to him, saying, "c'mon....look at all these stones...if you wanted, you could easily turn them to bread...you could satisfy your hunger, and instantly meet all the needs of the world."  it had to be tempting.  but Jesus knew that there was more than just bread and stones at stake here.  he knew that "easy fixes" wouldn't really be an answer to the problem of evil and brokenness.  he knew that bread was going to need to be broken, in order to really provide the wholeness that the world was so desperately hungry for.  so he quoted scripture.  he recalled deuteronomy 8, where the israelites we...

"better together" mixed media (puzzle pieces, found papers, acrylic paint) on hardcover bookboard february, 2019 gregory a. milinovich i finished up my "better together" series a couple of weekends ago with this idea that we really need each other. honestly, it's that simple for me.  we need each other.   but that doesn't mean i'm always really good at it.  i shared an example in my sermon (which you can listen to here ), about my experience this last november going to vote.   i wanted to vote before work, and i had hoped that by going early i could just slip in and out quickly.  but unfortunately there was a long line.  and it was cold.  and on the verge of raining.  and i stood there in line without an umbrella or an overcoat over my suit.  i put on my headphones to listen to something, and pass the time, when (of course) it started to rain, lightly at first.  the man behind me tapped me on the sho...

"black and white" mixed media collage (found papers, acrylic paint, glue on hardcover book board) february 2019 gregory a. milinovich i've been thinking a great deal about race and racism recently, reading a fantastic book by Austin Channing Brown called "I'm Still Here," and preaching a sermon on january 27th about how race divides us in our country, in our communities, and in the church.  i've been thinking about the way that my color has positively impacted my life.  and how i so often so carelessly participate in a system that impacts others negatively because of theirs.  i've been thinking about justice, and that long moral arc on the universe.  i've been thinking about how i've always had a soft-spot for the underdog, but have so often failed to consider my own fortunate place in a world full of underdogs.  i've been thinking about how i might be a part of changing this.  of erasing some small part of the line th...

"democrats and republicans" mixed media collage (acryclic paint, found papers, ink) on hardcover bookboard january, 2019 gregory a. milinovich as i continue to preach about what it means to be 'better together' in a culture in which we are deeply fractured, i preached last sunday about the political divisions that riddle our country.  left and right, red and blue, urban and rural: there are countless fault-lines of division that live in some sort of fearful tension of the quakes that might result should they really bump up against one another. one issue i see is that rather than discuss the issues and problems that our nation (or our states, cities, churches, etc.) faces with differing opinions and various ideas, we have instead chained ourselves to political parties, and what they seem to represent to us.  we make it our identity.  so, if hannity says something, we either agree with it or despise it, before he opens his mouth really.  same with madd...

"that they might be one" mixed media (found papers, ash, shoe polish, acrylic paint, glue) on bookboard january, 2019 gregory a. milinovich last week our church began a new sermon series in which we are exploring how, in spite of our increasingly-polarized culture, we are in fact better together.  that's what the series is called: better together.  i am going to be addressing some pretty divisive topics in this series, like politics and race, but we began last week with a prayer which Jesus prayed, that we get to sort of eavesdrop on, as recorded in the gospel of john.  in this prayer, he prays for his followers, both those around him, and those who will one day hear about him through others, and he prays that we might all be one, just as he and his father are one.  he prays for unity.  and he prays for this unity, so that the world may know of his love for us.  i've been thinking a great deal about unity over the last few weeks, in preparat...