Writer's BLOCK

Yeah, I actually do mean to have "BLOCK" in capital letters, even though that is the online equivalent of shouting. I'm having one of those days when I feel like shouting, mainly because I can't seem to write and I need to write because on Sunday I have to preach just like almost every Sunday and yes, that does get to be a little creatively challenging. Or it gets to be challenging to my creativity--that's more correct.

I'm thinking I'll write here and maybe that will help me write there.

So there was this guy Martin Luther and he had a hammer. He hammered in the mo-or-nin'. At least, I assume he used a hammer and the Peter, Paul and Mary reference works better if he did.

He had a hammer and he thought of ninety-five ways to say "The church is in error and the pope is a bad man and indulgences suck." A bit of an over-writer, Luther. Much different from an underwriter, which is someone who tries to deny you insurance.

Luther wasn't about denying. He was about affirming--affirming the relationship between people and a loving God who also wasn't about denying. The church had begun to proclaim a god (yes, I also meant the small "g") who was capricious enough to send folks to some mythical joint called purgatory until their families ponied up enough money to get them sprung. Because apparently this god was deeply invested in how many cathedrals could be built in his name (definitely meant "his").

That reminds me...so I was reading the Word Alone Network News. (I'd link Word Alone, but I love you, gentle readers, so I don't want you going there. And besides, you all know how to work Google.) Word Alone is a conservative Lutheran organization dedicated to the idea that we must so fear and love God that we should follow scripture exactly as written (in Leviticus 18 and the other 4 passages, that is, but not the rest of Leviticus except where convenient and not Mark 9 where Jesus offers some really clear teaching about divorce). So the recently divorced president of the Word Alone Network is writing about the outcome of the Churchwide Assembly, and she was writing about this guy named God who didn't look familiar to me at all.

Is there more than one? We do seem to act that way sometimes. I'm not really claiming to be right here (though I do think that I am). I'm just sad that we can just all get along and we went through the Reformation over whether God saves us by grace or because we're good and we are still busy telling each other to be good and ignoring the plank in our own eyes.

And I'm no closer to a sermon now but maybe just a little and I meant to write that contradiction in the last sentence of this post.

Not a Vagabond Any Longer

I seem to have bought a house. It's not totally final yet, but things are looking good. So I have answered my beloved's request to take "vagabond" out of my little subtitle/descriptor/bio thingy at the top of the page.

It's late and I'm tired, but also wanted to say this. Barack Obama makes me proud to be an American. I don't love everything he's done, but he is a good man and he's doing as good a job as anyone could do right now. I think.

Oh, and I still love my Wolverines and those really awful Chiefs. These are the times that try fans' souls...