Reconciling History and Hope
I grew up not far from Charlottesville and still remember visiting Monticello as a boy, fascinated by the gadgets of our third President. The decayed remnants of slavery and the …
I grew up not far from Charlottesville and still remember visiting Monticello as a boy, fascinated by the gadgets of our third President. The decayed remnants of slavery and the …
The day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, we gathered at Lake Junaluska for our seventh annual Interfaith Peace Conference. Our theme this year was “The …
Last week Sylvia and I went on a long-planned visit to Charleston, South Carolina, a beautiful and historic city we had not seen in twenty-five years. Founded in 1680, its …
“What do you know?” Who hasn’t uttered this frequent throw-away line in our everyday discourse. Not so usual would be to say “How do you know?” And yet, this could …
Last Sunday we concluded four days devoted to the Lake Junaluska Peace Conference, we have been involved in for the past seven years. This year’s theme was “Longing for Peace/Exploring …
Like the rest of you I have been trying to get my mind and heart around the explosive migration of refugees from war, political collapse, and drought that has engulfed …
The work of remembering takes patience, persistence, and an attention to detail. So I am finding out as I painstakingly sort through almost four hundred photographs from my mother’s stay …
I can’t get it out of my mind and I don’t want to. On June 19, Dylan Roof, the confessed killer of nine people in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal …
Last October I wrote about the development of Reconciling Conversations at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville, here in western North Carolina. At the time, we had put together a …
For us Northern Hemisphere folks who follow the Greco-Latinate calendar, this is a time of endings and new beginnings, of passage into darkness and out into light, from the dying …
Readers of this blog will know that I have spent many years cultivating a form of worship that places the circle of reconciling conversation at the center. This Roundtable Worship, …
My writing has been completely taken up with completion of my woodworking and spirituality book project with my friend John de Gruchy, who lives near Cape Town. You’re going to …
After a couple of weeks devoted to moving my website to a new host, I am finally able to reflect with you on two events – one perennial and one …
Like so many of you, I am confounded and angered by the government shutdown brought on by irresponsible Congressional Republicans. While the principal players try to resolve this calamity (and …