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Pentecost 14 – 09062020
Pentecost 14 – 09062020 – Labor Day Service
A special service prepared by Bishop Poulson and Canon Eric
Compromise Solution
Having converted Joan’s car to its cash value and needing to replace my bone-crushing sports car with a kinder-gentler suspension (as long as we drive on Oklahoma roads), we suddenly found ourselves in the market for two cars. Writing this column on science, technology and religion/ethics means that I need to walk the talk. Read more…
Christmas is coming!
My how time flies! It seems like we just started this year and it is already almost over.
This coming Sunday is the beginning of Advent. During the season of Advent we celebrate the hope that comes with the anticipation of the Savior’s birth, but so many of us get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping and baking and parties and programs and decorating and … and … and … (feel free to fill in the blanks here – there always seems to be one more thing to add to the list). We are overcome with anxiety rather than joy and we anticipate the end of the madness rather than the celebration of the coming of the Christ-child. We are too busy to really take the time to remember why we are celebrating in the first place.
This year at Grace, our children and youth will be spending time getting ready for the annual Christmas pageant. While they are doing this we are intentionally taking time to build that spirit of anticipation that is meant to be felt during Advent. I would like to challenge you to do the same. How will you embrace anticipation? What brings your hope to life?
Many say that it is already Christmastime, but I say it is not quite here yet. Christmas is coming and I look forward to searching for daily reminders of that hope.
The Evolution of Religion
I have read several books on this journey. Professor Bart Ehrman’s book, “Jesus Interrupted” was among those and it turned out to be the perfect provocateur with a background of world religions developing over 8,000 years paired with the development of Christianity over the past 2,000. I will not try to reproduce the numerous insights from a three hundred page book and it would make a fabulous group study book, let me give a few key points of Ehrman’s which, by the way, are nothing new to my seminary training nor to anyone who has taken Education For Ministry. It was a good survey book for me and reminded me of some important things. Read more…