In Gennesaret

I’ve been studying up on the Holy Spirit lately, so Jesus’ words in John 14-16 have been percolating in my thoughts a lot. Here’s the verse that jumped out at me recently: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (14:12) The works you've  been doing, Jesus? Really? Hmmm . . . In the verse immediately before this, Jesus refers specifically to his miracles. So, it’s really hard to read “the works” he mentions in verse 12 here as anything other than miracles. Yes, miracles.  Like, healing the sick and other such wild stuff. And the disciples he was speaking to did do miracles after Jesus went to the Father – at least some of them did, the book of Acts tells us. But this passage doesn’t say “you”, referring just to the people he was talking to at that moment; it says “whoever”, which is pretty wide-reaching. (And I looked up the Greek, y’all. The expla...

My rental house is tiny, but it has three bedrooms – two of them in the front of the house on either side of a short hallway with a bathroom. Well, wait . . . hallway? I don’t think you can even call it that. I mean, they all kind of feel like they’re on top of each other up there. So, when I heard the BEEP of a smoke detector coming from that direction the other morning, I didn’t know which of the three devices living in that part of the house needed its battery replaced. And I didn’t think about it again until around dinnertime when I heard a second  BEEP while I was washing dishes – and immediately forgot about it again. It wasn’t until 4am – 4am, people! – when the BEEP ing roused me to a solidly awakened state that I remembered that unfinished chore. Dang. The smoke detector. I need to do that in the morning. But apparently, in the morning was now not soon enough. The BEEPs started coming in every sixty seconds or so for the next hour. Insistent. BEEP. Unrelenting...

On a recent walk through the forest paths by my house, I met a man on a bike coming the other direction. I stepped off the path to let him pass; he nodded a thank you  – the etiquette expected on a path shared by pedestrians and bicyclists. Just past our interaction, I happened upon a curvy, hilly little section of the path with a lot of rocks lying around and tree roots sticking up from the ground. And I wondered, “How the heck did that guy maneuver this on a bike ?” I wonder that often about these paths. They’re lovely walkways, but I can’t even imagine attempting them on a bicycle at a faster speed. I watch these people flying down the hills and over the obstacles and around the corners, and I think they’re flat-out nuts. I know people who live all of life like that. At a fast pace, all the time. As if the road ahead of them is always going to be smooth and easy like it is right now. Then when the rocks show up and the bumps appear, they panic – and, of course, crash. I mean...

You know that little feature on Facebook where it brings up a “memory” of something you posted on this date in a previous year? It’s an interesting little feature. Sometimes annoying; sometimes fascinating. On January 2 nd , it reminded me of a meme I posted three years ago. A picture of a lioness (I’m assuming it’s a female lion because it has no mane . . . and because I needed it to be). She’s pacing toward the camera with narrowed eyes and determined steps. A feline warrior. The caption below her says, “2019: Thanks For The Lessons. 2020: Let’s Do This.” Whoa . . . had we only known. Here’s what fascinates me, folks. I shared that meme on January 2 nd , 2020, because I needed that cat to be ME. I knew what 2020 held for my life. I was in the process of a divorce which would be finalized that year. I was going to have to figure out how to live financially on my own. I would have to move, which meant finding a new place to live, getting rid of a lot of stuff, preparing my curren...

You know, I spent many years being very certain about what the Bible said about most things. I kinda miss that. The truth is that Bible is rather vague and unclear on some points. Even seemingly contradictory sometimes. A lot of Christianity does not want us to think that. I’ve sat through countless sermons and lessons where I’ve been told, “This isn’t confusing, folks. The Bible is abundantly clear about this topic. Only someone who doesn’t want to see the truth could think otherwise.” But they were wrong. There are many things in the Bible that are not abundantly clear.  The Bible is NOT abundantly clear about the role of women – in society, in church, or even in a marriage. About the value of women, yes; but one can pull all sorts of scripture out to support all sorts of different opinions on our roles . The Bible is NOT abundantly clear about homosexuality . . . about economic or political systems . . . not even about slavery. SLAVERY, people! (That’s a longer post f...