LTSP Blogs

Christmas is an amazing time of year. It is filled with shopping trips and lists of things to do. It is filled with writing cards and spending time on line at the local post office. It is filled with family gatherings and craziness with relatives you seldom get to spend time with. It is filled with rich food and too many snacks sitting around to munch on.

I have heard of some pretty serious hovering parents – often called Helicopter Parents – in my life and I try not to be the same way. I protect my kid as best I can but I have to let him lead his own life. I cannot hover over him and/or force him to make the decisions I want him to make. I understand that sometimes he will make good decisions. And sometimes he won’t.

The other day I was asked by a pastor friend why some of his newer members sometimes ask “clueless questions” about worship. “They should know this stuff,” he said. It was an “aha” moment for him when I asked if these folks had grown up in the church. They hadn’t.

I was asked recently what inspires me. I had a hard time answering the question. Not because I did not know what inspires me, but because there are so many ways to answer that question.

Today, I’d like to share with you Torat Bilhah, Bilhah’s Torah, the torah of a disposable woman. Today’s drash is based on an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Womanist Midrash. Womanism is black feminism by another name, coined by Alice Walker.

2 Peter 1:1-11

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Dear Students-

I’ve been thinking about you this week and wondering if you have begun asking yourself two of the perennial questions that come to every seminarian, pastor or church professional: Where is my church? and Who is my pastor?

I received my first anonymous hate mail today at my school. It came in a card shaped envelope with my (misspelled) name typed on the front with my school address. Inside there was a cute smiley face card. I opened it and found a typed note – it was nasty and vile and attacked me personally. The language was ugly and it sent me spinning for a bit. I was not prepared for the reaction I had to it.

Despite the flurry of activity in the last few weeks, I’m still haunted by the eucharist we had at LTSP on Nov. 9 – the commemoration of Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.” This was the night in 1938 when the Nazis showed their true colors and began their campaign of terror against the Jews in Europe.

A favorite image of forgiveness to preach about this time of year is the passage in Luke 17: 12-19 of Jesus healing the ten lepers of their disease. In the text as Jesus is passing by the men cry out for him to heal them and he tells them to go show themselves to the priests. As they went they were healed. All ten are miraculously healed by Jesus but only one of them returns to give thanks for that act of compassion.