Happy Birthday to all Libras

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Our Thoughts and Prayers

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What do we say when we see someone suffering?  What is there to say?  Certainly not, "I know just how you feel," or, "don't worry, time will heal," or, "It was God's will."   Often we say, "Our thoughts and prayers are with you."  And what does that mean, and what good does it do?  I've been thinking about prayer since I saw and wrote about Barbara Lubliner's beautiful prayer flags last week. I think a lot about prayer, especially at the times when I’m supposed to be praying and can’t figure out how to do it. I was talking with my brother, Alan, about a person we both knew.   “He’s so pretentious,” I said, “He prays with his head thrown back and his arms up in the air, just like a televangelist.” “How did you know what he's doing if you're praying?” Alan asked me. Theologian Frederick Beuchner  has said that if all we ever did was give thanks that would be enough for a lifetime of prayer. That may be true, and I've...
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Walk a Crooked Path to the Palace of Wisdom

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 Or the Palace of ART. Here's the story of a collage I had no intention of making. Audrey Webber, Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church has come up with a terrific idea--Visual Art Bible Study.  Yesterday I was feeling oppressed by the number of meetings I've put on my calendar, wondering how to make more time for making art, but Audrey asked me to show up and so I did. She showed us some work by Gerhard Richter, to whom I've never paid much attention.  This included a short video of him spreading paint on a big canvas with a squeegee. He also designed stained glass windows for a church in Germany, even though he declares himself an agnostic. Then Audrey asked us to think about how we visualize God; that's an interesting discussion for one who thinks in pictures.  My first thought is always Michelangelo's image. Here's a version by a second-grader who said, "God is the only one who has clothes." Then we read together a Bible verse, John 17:20. ...
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George Washington Never told a Lie

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Happy Birthday to George Washington. When that other George, King George III of England, was told that at the end of his term of office President Washington would relinquish power and retire to his farm in Virginia, he said, "Then he's the greatest man in the history of the world." Yes, the father of our country was a great man but not perfect, because, oh, yeah, slavery. It's hard to love Washington as whole-heartedly as we love Lincoln. "Merci, Monsieur le Marquis.  De rien, Monsieur le Presidente."  In this collage,   General Washington expresses his thanks to the Marquis de Lafayette for his help in winning American independence.  It's a statue that stands in Place des Etats Unis in Paris. A French coq and a Louisiana heron look on. The snow-covered trees are a reminder of the winter at Valley Forge. In a New York Times op-ed this week, Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First, A Biography of George Washington ,  says that ...
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