Black Belt Spirituality

 I haven't blogged in over a year. Father forgive for I have sinned.  It's been a busy year. My wife and I now have a son, Calvin who is now 3 months old. Oh, and the pandemic. I have done something I don't normally do. I took time off from work. *Gasp* I have taken a month to be on paternity leave with Calvin while my wife returns to work, albeit from home. (see pandemic.)  So I will attempt to use the next 3 weeks to blog my experience of being a stay at home dad and some theological musings around that.  Oh, and if you haven't guessed, our son is named after that reformer, and a certain cartoon. 

So yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  For some of my Protestant friends, yes I agree, there is no biblical directive for us to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Just like there isn't a directive to celebrate Christmas or Easter. But there is at its core a great biblical theology of creation, sin, our mortality, grace and death.  It calls us to community in our shared brokenness and the humility of our mortality. As a Presbyterian and reformed theologian, I am glad I have added this practice to my spiritual life the last few years.  I have been lucky to serve in a healthcare setting for the last 5-6 years during Ash Wednesday. It is often said to be  the busiest day of the year for Chaplains. I argue it is, a hospital I served at imposed over 5 thousand ashes one year. This year, between 2 services and rounding my CCRC, I imposed well over 100 ashes. And I also served communion to two people in our nursing unit, a Lutheran and a Catholic. By the end of the day my hands were black and dusty,

A well known pastor and author recently asked  her twitter followers “what scene from a movie makes you cry every time you watch it?” Now, for me there are several; but one movie popped to the front of my brain. In the movie Gods and Generals, which chronicles the Civil War from 1861 to just before the battle of Gettysburg, there is a scene when Gen. Stonewall Jackson learns a young girl he befriended has died of scarlet fever. Receiving the news from his staff physician, Jackson walks to the edge of his camp and slumping on a stump in grief he cries a truly guttural cry and sobs uncontrollably. When questioned as to why he is crying now, after not crying for every single man whose death he has ordered, for every friend and cadet he has lost on the field of the battle, the physician answers “no, I think he is crying for them all!  Five years deep as a chaplain; there are deaths where I do the same, I retreat to my chapel and ugly cry for every person I have walked to death. I thi

Some musings on Rogue one: A Star Wars story. Jyn Erso’s call that “rebellions are built on hope!” is lingering in my heart. Having preached on Romans 5; suffering produces endurance, endurance character character hope. Yet while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For me, each day is a rebellion against despair and suffering. But they are grounded in our source of hope, Jesus the Christ . Which led to these: And we boast in the hope  of the glory of God.   Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,  because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope.   And hope  does not put us to shame, because God’s love  has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,  who has been given to us. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 2b-5,8

Today was a rough day. It was the one year anniversary of the suicide of a resident in my CCRC. One of my flock. I spent a good chunk of the day with this persons widow, as well as the couple that witnessed the events unfold.  In light of Lent, My heart yearns for the resurrection, and my heart is continually broken for God's people. But we are Easter people; and Easter is coming!  Below is what I shared with my team that week last year: I walked my people through a trauma this week. And they walked me through it. So in light of Good Friday, this is what I shared with them: "It has been a rough week. Chaos has descended.(Oh, yeah, yeah it’s Holy Week.) Death’s sting has stung. Death is a Liar. It’s Friday! BUT that IS the good news; cause Sunday is coming! Nothing, NOTHING is outside the redemptive reach of God. We ARE Easter people. See you at the empty tomb! Rev. Sal"

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty  and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her,  “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her,  “You are right when you say you have no husband.   The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”-John 4:15-18 NIV              How many of us have every done a Google search on our computers or smart phones? If you have, you may know that each time you open your browser, that browser keeps a record of you searches and the websites you may have looked at. In tech talk this is your browser history, or just your history.  And security experts say you should routinely erase or clean out your “history.” But, guess what, we all have a history. And not just a google history. And every now and then we are reminded of or look at that history. And sometimes, like if our computers get hac