the unlikely orange

i read a book this afternoon (short little book - 77 pages), and just wanted to reflect on it a moment. its called three simple rules: a wesleyan way of living and is by rueben p. job. the title is a reference to john wesley's three rules for living: 1. do no harm (avoiding evil of every kind) 2. do all the good you can to everyone you can 3. stay in love with God (by keeping the ordinances of God). in a bit simpler fashion they are: 1. do no harm, 2. do good, and 3. stay in love with God. while these are simple and easily understandable rules for living, they are, of course, deep wells of practice and much harder to live than to understand. however, i found this little book really helpful for shaping the daily walk of a disciple in the midst of an increasingly complex world. if i could abide by the rule "do no harm," i would first have to understand myself and others as truly beloved children of God that i do not need to control. i would then be disarmed and equip...

disinterested. beyond the point of numb. deaf to continuous reports: "4 killed today in suicide bombing..." death-weary, soldier-fatigued. gouged for gas. not as furious as frustrated, just war-weary. how long, o lord? how long?

so i saw this interview on another blog, and i really wanted to put it up on mine, so here it is: stephen colbert interviewing anne lamott on the colbert report. i love everything about this interview: his antics, her uncertainty about how to handle him; his catholicism, her protestantism; his satire (where's the damnation?), her willingness to tell the truth about what she believes. i wonder if any of you have any response to this interview...

general conference is over. when i wrote about it 12 days ago, i was full of energy and hope about the work of the conference. i really thought that the denomination was going to shed some status quo and embrace some new ways of doing things, and while there were little signs of that here and there, it appeared to me, at least from the outside, like we mostly kept things the way they've been. the most attention-grabbing part of the general conference, or the part the media is always interested in, is our stance on homosexuality. this was a particularly disappointing part of the general conference for me. since 1972 we have a bit in our discipline in the social principles that says that homosexuality is "incompatible with christian teaching." this language is difficult to maintain in our discipline because Biblical interpretation is used convincingly on both sides of this arguement. this year, a group brought a resolution that was a bit of a comprimise: instead of ...

its sunday afternoon. as i was driving home from church today i found myself forcably exhaling and saying out loud (i often talk to myself out loud when i'm in the car - there's something therapeutic about it for me): i'm beat . i make my living as a united methodist minister, and one of the things that means is that i preach every sunday morning. and, don't get me wrong, preaching is one of my favorite parts of my calling. however, when its over each week, i find that i am physically and emotionally exhausted. it is like the whole week is building to this one moment, and when it is over, i just need to time to unwind and recover. maybe some preachers are energized by the preaching moment, i'm not sure, but i know that for me, while i love it, it really takes it out of me. and speaking of preaching, i always find myself reflecting on what is to me an awkward situation: when people are leaving church and they say to you, "that was a great sermon." i...

i told you that there would be yankees updates from time to time. i wanted to write about the yankees today, because this has really been a fascinating - and disappointing - beginning to the baseball season for the bronx bombers. the standings tell the truth that after 31 games (over a month) they are under .500 at 15-16. they have lost more games than they have won. this is a team with a payroll that surpasses the annual budget of many small countries. if you listen to the media whine and complain about how unfair it is that the yankees can go and get whatever players they want because there is no salary cap, ets., then you know that this is supposed to be the harlem globetrotters of baseball. they should be dominating the other teams. but they are not. they have lost to other teams more than they have won. that's just a fact. now, part of it, of course, is that the yankees have 9 players on the disabled list, including two huge bats in jorge posada and a guy who is kno...

here's me in a bowling shirt i bought at a thrift store. it says "mr. schnur" above the pocket. i loved that shirt. i don't know what happened to it. this picture was taken when i was in college. here's something i wrote in my journal about 10 years ago, after not writing for some weeks: april 29th i don't know why i'm choosing tonight to write of all nights. i'm not inspired. nothing particularly exciting or tragic is happening to me. i am just writing. its been awhile and this is a good habit that i have fallen out of. a problem i had not expected to be mine, since writing has always seemed so natural. why do i write? to catch up? to catch who up? myself? is it for future generations or for history buffs? is it so my great-grandchildren can discover me? is it to give me something to do? or is it because i am supposed to? like breathing. i think that's it. but why have i stopped then? why stop breathing? i hold my breath when i am afraid and ...