Theo of Golden
I have just finished reading Theo of Golden: A Novel, by Allen Levi (Atria, 2025). Theo is an old man who arrives quietly in a small mid-Georgia city for a late-life sojourn …
Vocational Seasons
At our Roundtable Worship gathering on September 14 we focused our conversation and prayers on the question, What is my vocation at this stage of my life? With our reading …
Roundtable Liturgy for August
I have decided to post the liturgies from our Roundtable Worship regularly in this space. The first reason is that the opening liturgy gives voice to my “sense of the …
Coming to the Table
Three strands of my life have coalesced in the recent publication of two books. First, in 2000 I built my first round communion table, which was followed by several more …
Buried at the Keyboard
You haven’t seen any new postings from me for the past month because my fingers have been busy typing up two books that I probably mentioned sometime earlier. This is, …
Mediating the I Am—Some Summery Reflections
On August first the world here in the Smokies seems to pause, take a breath, and then sigh with a slight cool shudder of fall. Global warming might advance that …
Twenty Years of Roundtable Worship
Last Sunday was the twentieth anniversary of the Roundtable Worship Gathering at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville, North Carolina. Whether by dogged perseverance, habit, or the winds of the …
Roundtable Call and Remembrance
Some of you have expressed appreciation for receiving elements of the liturgy for our monthly Roundtable Worship here in the mountains of North Carolina. After the lighting of a candle …
Bodies Together at Table
We are all weary, bone weary, from the sense of loss, of powerlessness, of the shadow of doom that hangs over the earth. It is another “end of the age” …
Weeping for the Peace of Jerusalem
In the stunned faces and writhing bodies of little children besieged by bombs and missiles we hear the ancient cry of the God whose own body is constantly torn apart …
Capitol Desecration and Sacred Conversations
Many commentators have described the assault on our nation’s Capitol as a “desecration,” and indeed it was. We feel violated. We feel waves pounding at the foundation of our fundamental …
Thanks at Table – A Pandemic Reflection
The roundtable worship gathering has been the principal way I have stayed centered over the past two decades. The symbolism of the round table has played a central role in …
Race, Remembrance, and Forgiveness
I am presently engaged in a lengthy course at our church (via Zoom, naturally) entitled “Struggling with Race, Remembrance, and Reparations.” Over forty of us are gathering every week to …
Gathering in (Virtual) Circles
We are now gathering for our monthly Roundtable Worship here in a virtual circle tied together by the internet. In one sense, this expands our circle to anyone who wants …
Plague, Prayer, and Possibility
The pestilence raging all around us takes our memories back to the influenza epidemic of 1918 and beyond that to the plagues of 14th century Europe that killed off one-third …
Roundtable Worship: August 2019
As many of you know, for the past sixteen years a group of ten to twenty people has gathered monthly around a round table for a kind of worship gathering …