Month: March 2023

Last Sunday I was taken out of mothballs, having been asked to preach at a nearby church. The theme of the day’s lectionary texts centered around the contrast between seeing and blindness, how spiritual seeing, in other words, differs from the way the “world” generally sees itself.

The gospel reading from John featured Jesus healing a man blind from birth. The upshot is that the religious leaders, the Pharisees, refuse to believe what is right before their eyes – a man born blind is now able to see.

Near the end of the reading, Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

Continue reading “Get Off My Lawn!”

I’m old enough to remember seeking cover under my desk in elementary school. Apparently, it never occurred to the administrators at the New Lebanon School that in the event of a nuclear detonation our flimsy writing tables just might not fully protect us. But under the desks we went.

It is perhaps hard for those of us living today to imagine, or remember, the fear and anxiety that gripped our world in the 50s and 60s relative to “the bomb.” It was a topic on everyone’s lips.

With the advent of the “space age” and its technological advancements, particularly with respect to weapons delivery systems, the possibility of a “nuclear holocaust” had become real, one with the potential to wipe out tens of millions of people in a matter of moments. Worse still, we appeared to be on a collision course with our mortal enemy, a nuclearized Soviet Union.

Continue reading “Where Have All the Peacemakers Gone?”