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People wonder about how to pray out loud. In my tradition Jesus said this simple prayer:
Mother, father, sister, brother and friend, Who makes everything sacred, and all life possible,
we ask only enough for today.
Release the burdens of yesterday as we release the debts of those we have burdened.
Protect us from distraction and anything that is not of life. May it be.
That’s all he said.
And then he turned back to healing. -
From Prayers for a Newer New Awakening. Available here.
Category Archives: boundary leaders
Carolina tears
Hearts break today in North Carolina. I think of atheists as slightly over-educated modernists who are harmless, almost quaint, in their ardent non-belief. It had not occurred to me that non-believers were inclined to shoot people over parking slots. But … Continue reading
City of Light
Every religion is dangerous. Like fire, wind and water, religion is a fundamental element of human life that can drown, blast and burn. Religion guides our fear and frames our shame. And it can also strengthen our capacity for the … Continue reading
New blade
I peered through a hole in our basement wall into a cloud of sawdust where my father fed a piece of wood into the spinning blade. The sound was painfully high loud and powerful, such that I can still hear … Continue reading
Pompless patriotism
Jefferson, the pompless patriot, would have approved. Thanks to the Daily Beast and my brother Ron who forwarded their article, I learned that exactly 1,003 steps from my home near the Square in Salem, the Moravians had created the very first … Continue reading
Warren, Kenny and Barney
Fred Smith is a Harvard-SMU-Emory PhD and United Methodist preacher. He grew up tough in Oakland playing football. When he and I were walking around Jack London Square Thursday night after a nerve-fraying couple of days, we went looking for … Continue reading
Posted in Beloved Community, boundary leaders, Fred Smith, Memphis, Uncategorized
Tagged chawumba, faithhealthnc, Stakeholder Health
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Sin and Liberation
Didn’t expect that title did you? There is something about Good Friday coming in the same week as a day-long medical center budget meeting that turns my mind toward sin; and then, just when you least expect it, toward liberation. Tom Peterson … Continue reading
Mapping Curiosity
These are such interesting days for hopeful people in our wildly dynamic world. Never before in the history of the species have we seen more radical emergence of vast numbers and forms of relational webs. More than two million non-governmental … Continue reading
Rochester Warming
I just spent two remarkable days in Rochester, New York with the grown-ups in and around its institutions of healing and learning. It was cold; the wind off the lakes gave the first early snow of the season. At one … Continue reading
Posted in Beloved Community, boundary leaders, deeply woven roots, Uncategorized
Tagged Colgate Rochester, King, Social Gospel
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DNA
I learned an extremely simple thing at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies: if there is a lot of something going on inside or between humans and you don’t understand it, you should pay attention until you do. The biology … Continue reading
Generating generations
I spent this week with a group of global class scholars and scientists at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies under the auspices of the Ernst Strungmann Forum (www.esforum.de). We gathered to blend what is known–and not known–about formative childhoods … Continue reading