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 ...

"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...

"faceless immigrants 1-13" mixed media collage (found papers, acrylic paint, glue) on hardcover bookboard november, 2018 gregory a. milinovich i know that this is a divisive subject, and i don't mean to divide.  in fact, my sincere hope would be to build and connect.  but as i continue to glue things together in a way that expresses what is going on in my soul, i cannot help but deal with some of the discord i find there recently.   the news has been full of stories about immigration, asylum-seekers, and how we maintain borders.  these are complicated issues, to be sure, but one of the ways that i find myself struggling as i process the things i see and hear (or sometimes try to avoid seeing and hearing), is to remember that we aren't just talking about an issue here.   when we start painting in broad strokes and speaking in swaths of generalities, we deal in issues and policies and i understood that conversation at that level is...

for the past four summers now i've been making an annual "summer cd," just for my own kids to listen to as we travel around through the summer months.  part of the idea was to have some "feel-good" music for the summer, as well as to expose my kids to something beyond kidz bop.  now the kids are making suggestions for the song list, too, so it has become a collaboration.  over the last four years, it has evolved into something with a theme, only because my own compulsion is to mix songs in a way that isn't just a grab bag of random music, but a kind of musical story, at least one that makes sense to me.  so this year's cd is about dreams.  and bears and bananas, too.  here's the song list.  i've been making mix tapes for the last 30 + years.  i remember recording things off the radio, pretending i was the dj, putting songs together in ways that made sense to me and interested me.  i kept mixing music through my high school and...

lord, we are divided.  if the images on your tv screen of angry white men carrying tiki torches in charlottesville didn't demonstrate that to you, then the polarized response to it certainly did. not that this should come as a big surprise. after the election, we knew that there was a chasm between blue and red states and their corresponding voters. and while no oversimplified binary expression of extremes can ever fully paint the picture of who we are as individuals or groups, the way the extremes continue to attract movement to the polar caps of opinion shows just how divided we have become.  of course it doesn't help that we hear what we want to hear in news, social media, and even the marketplace (personalized ads online try to only show me what they know think i am already interested in).  further wedging the divide is the increasing inability to have civil discourse with those who believe/feel/live/love/look/vote differently than us.  when these factors con...

happy memorial day, a day we set apart to remember specifically that the freedoms and liberties we enjoy were bought at a price, and that price was paid in the currency of human lives.  even today, as we think about our way of life, we should recognize that when we abuse our freedoms, or take them for granted, we are devaluing that price and dishonoring that memory.  when we choose greed over commonwealth; when we choose comfort over justice for all; when we choose personal gain over public health; when we choose self over community and country; we forget the great gift we've been given and we shame ourselves. this land was never just for me.  it was always for us .  it was always about freedom from monarchy, freedom from legislated religion.  it left room for differences.  we seem to have forgotten that in our country today, when instead of welcoming the tired, the poor, and the hungry, we want to build walls and deport those who are different. ...

"MLK" by Derek Russell, 2013 hope.  it's what i've built my ministry on. well, not exactly.  hope that isn't based on anything is just wishful thinking, or worse.  so i've built my ministry on hope in the love of Jesus Christ, who died for love and rose again.  i've built my ministry on this idea that love wins.  that love wins over hate, over fear, over pain, over addiction, over war, over oppression, over everything, even death.  i've built my ministry on that love.  of course, it is centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus.  which means it takes belief, or faith.  it is often mixed pretty heavily with doubt, but at my core, i believe. so, to recap: my whole life is really about trying to live and proclaim a wild-eyed and radical hope, which is based on the unthinkable, unquenchable, inseparable love of Jesus, which i experience through a (sometimes diluted) faith that i cling to, with clenched fists and strained muscles. ...

i don't know if you can see the little green caterpillar crawling in the broccoli in the picture above. we sure didn't. we got much of our vegetables last summer from a farm co-op, which provided us all kinds of fresh, locally grown vegetables in exchange for our financial support of their farm.  it was a great arrangement, that put all kinds of good food on our table.  we were very blessed by this.  but the kids weren't quite as enthused when we discovered that a green caterpillar or two had been cooked, along with the broccoli.  they were even more disgusted when i showed them that it wasn't a big deal by eating one right in front of them.  they thought that i had ascended to the very peak of mount disgusting, and it was quite the topic of conversation in our home for a few days.  the next time they helped shannon to prepare some broccoli for dinner, they closely examined it before cooking it, and sure enough they found another little green caterpi...

One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus replied,  “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The L ORD  our God is the one and only L ORD .    And you must love the L ORD  your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’   The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”                                                                                                    -mark 12:28-31 Jesus was pretty clear about it.  when you...

crunch.  crunch.  crunch.  the sound of my slippery-bottomed dress shoes as i trudged through the snow on my way home from church.  i was looking down at the snow, at first so i wouldn't slip, but then because i noticed the footprints of all three of my sons alongside Shannon's.  i could see where they had stepped, both on their way to church, and home again, some steps obscured by others, bearing witness to the traveling circus that is our family.  but the shape and direction of each little print revealed its maker. three little boys.  following their mother.  through the snow.  in their dress shoes. it's enough to make a dad cry.  and it was certainly enough to make this dad think.  where will these footsteps lead?  at the moment, they were leading me home from church, where those three precious boys and their mother would likely be sorting laundry, getting lunch ready, and already making preparations for the afternoon...

ummm......really? is anyone else ever embarrassed to be a part of this culture, or is it just me? i'm just imagining trying to explain this to Marley, our little girl we pray for and support in hondoras. i was in honduras.  i remember meeting Maria, who got up at 4 in the morning to start making little flour tortillas in her 2-room "house" so that she can sell them on the street for a cent or two a piece. what would Maria say if i showed her this advertisement? what is wrong with us? not that i'm beyond this, believe me.  i can binge with the best of them, and my excessive personality has put me in situations that i'm sure i would be quite ashamed of in my more "balanced" moments. but at a moment like this, when i see the whole world and think of all of God's children, i wonder about the injustice of my excessive comfort, and what i can do about it.  i'm not trying to be preachy here, or tell you not to enjoy your double extreme bacon...

okay.  so here's the problem.  the longer i go without posting something worth writing and reading on this blog, the harder it gets to post at all.  i think its been nearly two weeks since i wrote, and when that happens, i feel more and more pressure (from myself) to write something that validates the lack of posts. but i got nothing. so, in an effort to just grit my teeth and forge ahead today, i am singularly rejecting the idea that all my absenteeism requires some epic post to compensate.  instead, i will simply jot down a few things rattling around in my head this morning. the other night at dinner quin told us that he likes to eat yodels at a wash-a-not.  and that he likes flushies and hot gogs from target.  (yodels = noodles; wash-a-not = restaurant; flushies = slushies).  he also calls that orange circle through which you toss a ball to earn two points by the following name: basketball poop.   i've been on a huge bruce springste...

i've been sitting on this post for some time now, hemming and hawing about actually writing it, but, well, holy week seems about as good a time for a confession as any.  so here goes.  when i was a young teenager, maybe 13 or 14, my grandparents asked me if i wanted a bible.  but not just any bible.  it was the bible recorded on audio tapes.  i guess they got it somehow and no longer wanted it, and wondered if i would like it.  now, let's be clear about one thing: i was a pretty good church kid.  i mean, i was a teenager like any other, and i had my junk, but in the grand scheme of things, my main form of rebellion was growing a curly mullet and listening to stryper.  when i listened to amy grant singing "baby baby," which was pretty clearly not about Jesus, i felt like a wild child.   so, when my grandparents offered me the bible on cassette (oh, i nearly forgot:  kids, a cassette was a small plastic cartridge that contained a ...

i'm in a period of grieving. for who knows how long now, my sunday nights won't be marked by a whimsical imaginative trip across the oceans of time and space to 1920's england. i will be lonely without robert and cora, carson and mrs. hughes, mary, edith, and especially anna and mr. bates. thomas i could do without.  i'll even miss mr. molesly.  you see, downton abbey is over for another season (or series, as the brits say it). i don't care if they are two hours long, seven or eight episodes is not enough...it is unjust, i tell you!  seriously. i would be content just to watch the servants eat and work and talk. sort of like PBS's downton abbey meets CBS's big brother. i would watch that.  but alas, i cannot. so i will mourn for awhile, and just count my lucky stars that this season didn't end with a terrible tragic death.   i only wish mrs. hughes were here to comfort me.  long live downton abbey!  

"it is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart."  -martin luther.  "take time to laugh; it is the music of thy soul."  -from an old english prayer book if it is true, as martin luther said, that "you have as much faith as you have laughter," then my faith has been strong recently, or at least abundant. because i have been laughing my rear end off. i love to laugh, i really do, and i will probably agree with any study - scientific or not - that indicates that laughing increases productivity or longevity or accidental urination.  its all true in my opinion:  laughing is really good. still, sometimes i struggle with laughter.  while i laugh, i wonder about those who cannot laugh.  those who are abandoned, abused, traded and used.  i think of those who do not moan with laughter but with hunger pangs, with grief, and with despair.  there are so many times when my laughter - as ...

the kids have a 2-hour delay this morning because of the cold temps, so i took a picture from our front window of the front lawn this morning.. a little creepy that he's smiling and waving, but i guess that's just him mocking us, saying, "it feels like 14 below zero out here, wanna come outside for a snow cone?" brrrrrrrr. also this:  i'm ready for spring.  i feel like i usually am able to delay this feeling until mid-february, but not this year.  i want spring and i want it now.  i have had quite enough of mr. winter, thank you very much, what with his gray-black snow and tracking salt from your shoes into the house and your vehicles looking like you dipped them in gray paint.  enough! .... i watched some of the grammys on sunday night.  it started at 8pm with beyonce girating around half-naked as if she was at one of the establishments that operate near truck stops.  i was glad my children weren't watching, but i was wondering how many w...

it looks like one of the huts finally found han solo and had him frozen in carbonite (again).  how do we know this?  NASA has found him.  on mercury.  you can read about it .  also, if you're having trouble concentrating, you need more of the color orange in your life.  seriously.  further research has shown that if you are having trouble dealing with the awful beginning to the football season by the steelers, or the way the pirates are laying an egg againt the padres, or the sad last desperate moments of the yankees season, you need more agentorange in your life.  agent orange records, that is.  where we never stop.  we keep on hoping.  we never give up.  we die trying.  oh, and we change our name.  that's right.  i am getting rid of the agentorangerecords moniker.  it is long overdue.  it is too closely associated with a chemical and war and terrible cost to life, and i am no longer w...

always wondered what your name would be if you were born in the star wars universe?  check it out here .  always wondered what the news would sound like if everyone sang it and realized how ridiculous they sound?  check it out here .  thinking about shaving your moustache?  check this out.  wanna see a great coldplay cover? watch  this .  and have the best saturday ever.   

i don't stay up until 2am the way i used to.  i used to be able to wake up the next day almost as if nothing had happened.  now, it takes me about 4 days to recover.  that's why i'm just getting around to writing now. yes, friday night i was in philadelphia with Shannon to see taylor swift's "red" tour, and it was, in a word, swift-tacular .  now, let's get one thing straight here: i am not a swiftie, at least not in the common vernacular.  if i was unsure about this before the concert, i am quite clear now.  there is definitely some celebrity worship going on when it comes to taylor swift: girls of nearly ever age dressing like her, professing their unabashed love, and screaming their faces off at every mention of her name.  there were even men, wearing taylor swift t-shirts, painting their faces, and generally losing their minds.  this is not me.  i can't tell you her shoe size or her hairdresser's name.  but i can tell you t...