Category: Reading Out Loud
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An Ayah on Guidance
MuslimPro’s verse of the day from the Qur’an was Surah 28, Al-Qasas, (The Story or The Narrative) 56. This is how it reads in Pickthall’s translation: Lo! thou (O Muhammad) guidest not whom thou lovest, but Allah guideth whom He will. And He is Best Aware of those who walk aright. It struck me that…
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How it matters, this moment
Do not make light of your failings, saying “What are they to me?” A jug fills drop by drop. So the fool becomes brimful of folly. Do not belittle your virtues, saying “They are nothing.” A jug fills drop by drop. So the wise man becomes brimful of virtue.1 1 Dhammapada: The Sayings of the…
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Something about Athens and Jerusalem
The “history of western civilization” has for centuries and in textbook after textbook told a story about “western culture” being the world-historical synthesis of Greek-and-Roman and Hebrew cultures. For religion in particular, this mixed marriage was destined for conflict, at least according to one way of reading the fundamental dynamics of the situation:
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Exegetical Exercise Hebrews 13 1-8, 15-16
Of the choices offered in the Revised Common Lectionary, Hebrews 13:1-8 & 15-16 seems like the one that could speak to the people at the small rural church where I agreed to preach on Sunday better than others on the list. The context is the question of “acceptable worship” of a God who is a…
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Exegetical Exercise Luke 13 10-17
Here are a few exegetical notes from a first few readings of Luke 13:10-17 – sometimes referred to as the episode of “the bent woman.” I feel particularly close to “the bent woman” because her ailment sounds a lot like some kind of arthritis, with which I am personally familiar, so I imagine her pain,…
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A Definition of Critical Thinking that Works
Critical thinking describes the process by which students become aware of two sets of assumptions. First, students investigate the assumptions held by scholars in a field of study regarding the way legitimate knowledge is created and advanced in that field. Second, students investigate their own assumptions and the way these frame their own thinking and…
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Exegetical Exercise Isaiah 5 1-7
Taking a closer look at Isaiah 5:1-7, “the song of the vineyard,” maybe adding some of the following verses (“Ah,/ Those who add house to house and join field to field, / Till there is room for none but you / To dwell in the land!” Isaiah 5:8 JPS)
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Exegetical Exercise Isaiah 1 10-20
One of the Revised Common Lectionary texts for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost is Isaiah 1:1, 10-20. A couple of things jump out from a first or second reading of that text.
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Wondering about feeling good
How important is it to “feel good”? I’m taking a class online which clearly has as one of its important purposes teaching us how to cultivate a positive, calm, serene, happy feeling as we go through life. I’m all for that. But from time to time I wonder whether it’s the main thing I need…
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What do we create?
Found the beautiful prayer/poem “A Simple Choice” at Sacredise while looking for liturgical resources for the 13th Sunday in ordinary time. Do we create need … or do we create plenty? Still working on a better answer to that one. Read it here.
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Exegetical Exercise Luke 12 13-21
Our pastor became a first-time grandfather on Sunday afternoon. Great news! It means that he’s out of town celebrating his granddaughter and helping her feel like the new world is a loving place and supporting his first-time-grandmother wife and first-time-mother daughter and first-time-father son-in-law and so on. For me, it means that I’m knee deep…
Matters of Interpretation 