I’m automatically suspicious of anyone who seems to possess either an extremely limited sense of humor or, even more so, none at all. Life without a sense of humor to me would be very dark and depressing, and I honestly feel that along with the
Note: Numbers in brackets refer to pages in Father Taylor, the Sailor Preacher by Gilbert Haven and Thomas Russell (San Francisco: BB Russell, 1872) When you hear the tone, the year will be 1854, and the place, Boston. In Albany, NY, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the
There was a saying that my father had when I was younger, which I recall clearly, as he often used it to try and push ultra conservative fundamentalist theology on me. Most often his insistence that anything we wanted to accomplish or have for ourselves
The concept of sin is not contained within catechisms learned in our churches, or in the theological vocabulary of our priests. Rather, I believe, each and every act of self-indulgence constitutes sin. Any time we put our own interests above that of others, so that
A number of years ago, at a parent’s night held at the school where I taught theology to junior high students, a parent asked a question no one had ever asked me before: “Who has been the greatest influence on your spiritual life?” I remember
Sin, in my honest estimation, is one of two things. Sin is turning away from who God calls you to be, and sin is broken relationship, and we all experience these problems in our lives. Turning away from who God calls you to be is
He was sobbing not just because he thought he had just done the most evil (sinful) thing he could possibly do, but because it was the thing he had most wanted to do ever since he became a self-conscious being. (Andrew Sullivan, When Plagues End)
Sin – what a terrible word! That word can make people feel bad about themselves, make them do even more evil things, just because they feel guilty. So it has been for me. I am raised in a Pentecostal church there I learned from childhood
Chicks break out of their shells because they’re dying. When the fetal chicken is mature, the egg fills with a toxic gas and the chick inside must break out or die. It seems harsh, but the chick’s passage from incubation to self-salvation and finally into
I was talking to a brotha the other day (we’ll call him James), and the conversation we had was very interesting. See, this brotha is young, intelligent, beautiful, and goal oriented. He has a plan for his future and is on his way to success