Tag Archives: Church
The Everyday Uncanny
In recent years I’ve been easing my way back into scary fiction and the less gruesome sort of horror films. I am strictly a dilettante here; I can highly recommend Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House if you want a book, and recent films like It Follows, The Babadook, Let the Right One In, […]
Ordination Anniversary, 2017
Here’s me at my ordination on this day in 2009. Back when I was preparing for ordination, I fancied myself a somewhat unlikely pastor. Then I learned that there really is no such thing as a likely pastor anymore, so I may as well get over that conceit and figure out how to do this job. […]
Sermon: The God of the Center
(I preached this sermon on August 15, 2010–the Feast of St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord–at Wicker Park Lutheran Church in Chicago) Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. On Friday the great film critic and now equally great blogger Roger Ebert offered […]
Chicago Diarist: Thought for the Morrow
(I wrote this in February, 2011, when I was serving as a part-time associate pastor in a small Chicago parish and it seemed that I was not going to receive a full-time call anywhere) “Be careful what you wish for” is advice that I long ago learned to heed in my preaching life. I don’t […]
Brutally Ordinary Things 