We are six weeks into a summer series using Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening as our text. This week, I am reading his passage from June...

Colossians 2:6-7 NRSVUE “As you therefore have received Jesus, the Christ, continue to walk in him, rooted and built up in him and...

Philippians 4:4-7 NRSVUE 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord...

Jeremiah 30:18-19 NRSVUE “Thus says the Lord: I am going to restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob and have compassion on his...

2 Chronicles 5:13-14 NRSVUE “It was the duty of the trumpeters and singers together to make themselves heard in unison in praise and...

Exodus 20:17 NRSVUE 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox,...

Exodus 20:16 NRSVUE “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Matthew 7:1-5 NRSVUE 7 “Do not judge, so that you may not...

Exodus 20:15 NRSVUE “You shall not steal.” Matthew 6:19-21 NRSVUE 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and...

Exodus 20:14 NRSVUE “You shall not commit adultery.” Matthew 25:1-13 NRSVUE 25 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young...

Exodus 20:13 13 “You shall not murder.” Matthew 5:21-22 NRSVUE 21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall...

Exodus 20:12 12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you....

“I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.”...

Exodus 20:8-11 8 “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a...

Exodus 20:7 NRSVUE 7 “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses...

Where to begin – I suppose at the beginning. When I first received a phone call regarding my profile, I was a little stunned because...

Matthew 4:1-4 NRSVUE 4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and...

Tonight, I was with my wife at a local restaurant. As we were preparing to pay for our meal, there was a man already at the checkout; his...

Author's note: Long post warning. I pray it is a good read. Matthew 19:16-22 NRSVUE 16 Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what...

Here is the shortened version of the 10 Commandments: 1. You shall have no other gods before me. 2. You shall not make for yourself an...

Leviticus 19:33-34, Inclusive Bible Do not mistreat the foreigners who reside in your land. The foreigner who lives among you must be...

Genesis 28:10-19 10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because...

In 2019, Karen Armstrong published her book The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts. I started reading the introduction and...

I cannot recall ever having written anything about General Synod in a Blog Post. Sounds kind of boring, really. But Synod begins on...

“Within Young Leaves” The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo Wrapped within young leaves: the sound of water. —Soseki "This delicate...

“A Wisdom Moment of Trust” The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo "The need to step into what we fear and, in so doing, disperse its hold on us...

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Chapter 105:1-8 (Mirrors the Gospel of Luke 8:1-3) "1. Now, many women who possessed much wealth, and abode...

Luke 17:11-19 11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten...

Luke 8:26-39 26 Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on shore, a man from...

Luke 21:1-4 21 He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; 2 he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper...

Luke 4:22-30 “22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s...

Luke 4:18-19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim...

There was another mass shooting today, the 146th mass shooting this year. Mass shootings are defined as a shooting death where four or...

Matthew 28:1-10, NRSVUE 28 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the...

21 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go...

Jeremiah 31:33-34 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my...

My apologies - this is a long post, but hopefully a deeply informative one. There is much more I could say about Atonement, but hopefully...

We continue our Lenten series on the ways in which we violate God's covenant and this week are looking at how to keep the Sabbath Holy....

Leviticus 22:1-3 22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 “Direct Aaron and his sons to deal carefully with the sacred donations of the...

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of Lent. Throughout Lent we will be looking at several of the ways in which we violate God’s...

"An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice...

Chapters 11-15 deal with the regulations on clean and unclean, but we are going to take them chapter by chapter because they each discuss...

As we continue our deep-dive into the Book of Leviticus, we learn more about the people of Israel, the God they worshiped, and maybe even...

This section of material is so fascinating to me. So often we have no context for the priesthood, nothing concrete enough to say, "This...

If you've ever taken the time to read Leviticus then you will notice right out of the gate that God's instructions to Moses seem rather...

Note: The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV, provides an excellent introduction to each book of the Bible. The first section of material...

In order to understand the importance of Leviticus, it is important to understand who wrote it and why. Most scholars adhere to the...

A few days ago, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, which removes federal protection of women who seek...

Most of us are familiar with the story of Palm Sunday, the day that Jesus rides in on a colt or a donkey into the city of Jerusalem just...

38 Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old regularly each day. 39 One lamb you shall offer in the morning,...

45 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So, no...