Theology Tuesday

    We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.                                      Sojourner Truth   On this the centennial celebration of women voting in the USA, Sojourner gets to the heart of it all from her address in 1851 at the Women’s Rights Convention asking “ Aint I a woman? ” There is no record of the speech as she spoke it, only as journalists and later writers remembered it making it truly a living kind of word. Not one contained by historical accounts, but a truth carried in strength and spirit from 1851 for 1920 and today. Sadly, it is a word still needed as sisters continue to seek a fairer world, equal pay and freedom from harassment. Strong, vocal women speaking their mind who are continually referred to as bossy, bitchy or nasty- demeans us all.  In 1920 those women leade...

Seen this one yet?  Over 300,000 have.  It’s a well done Hamilton parody tapping into our church pandemic predicament. It will make you laugh and who doesn’t need a little of that right now? https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=CFduNE4pXAQ&feature=emb_logo First time I watched it I applauded my clerical colleague for being so creative and wondered if he would let us use the clip in a Sunday worship video, a little holy laughter. Until it wasn’t funny to me anymore. The song, silly as it is in the musical, is deadly serious in its display of tyranny. The king is mad but not a fool and will do anything, including sending a fully armed battalion, to remind you of his love. What if the harmlessly intended, humorous skit was revealing more than it knew?  Oh c’mon!  Over analyze much?! Maybe. And I’ll be quick to say this is not me critiquing my colleague whom I do not know and cannot, nor wish to, disparage. It's my own reaction and interpretati...

    I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles. If you know, you know; a heartbeat can be heard for a thousand or a million miles away, especially when that heart beats for you. And if you don’t know, well not even the heart beating within your chest will grab your attention. But it’s there. That pulsing beat- it’s around you and certainly within you. Our earth itself is said to have a heartbeat https://www.livescience.com/30940-earth-atmosphere-heartbeat-detected-space.html and the rhythms of life are constantly strumming, and vibrating. Everything alive moves and pulses. You may have found a moment to pause and read this today, but even now you are spinning at 1600 km/hr as our planet journeys around the sun at a mind boggling 107,000km/hr. Your blood is flowing, synapses firing, lungs collapsing and expanding to the involuntary beat of your breath. We are always on the move - running like a river’s song indeed, Van. It's just a little hard to feel that rhythm wh...

When it comes to beats, well, I'm a fiend I like my sugar with coffee and cream Well, I gotta keep it going keep it going full steam Too sweet to be sour too nice to be mean        Beastie Boys- Intergalactic You feeling that? If you know the song you have to be rocking your head, leaning into that ridiculous futuristic sound with a wicked old-school beat.   Here’s a link to get us all on the same page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TgTXYFHlfk There is too much fun to be had in this song, and I need a little of that perennial Beastie Boys buoyancy just now. It’s been 121 days since we cancelled in-person worship here at St. Andrews- Covenant, and all that this pandemic has brought is weighing heavy upon us all. Our governor here in NC just announced Plan B for the upcoming school semester https://www.nhcs.net/nhcsreadysetreturn/plan-b . While I hear the necessary wisdom in it, I know how worried and scared parents, teachers and s...

There's a million things I haven't done. But just you wait, just you wait What's your name, man? Hugh Knox. (What?) Like many of you, or maybe even all of you, our family watched Hamilton this weekend. Countless replays of the soundtrack and even seeing it live did not dampen the enthusiasm for the tv premier of this now-iconic production. I enjoyed hearing the story again so much that I jettisoned several good books I’m reading to finally tackle the Ron Chernow biography of Hamilton that so inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda. Chernow is generous with both the subject and the reader in sharing Alexander’s life, avoiding the understandable but often treacherous temptation to hold a historical context entirely accountable to the present. Reading the biography, I was surprised and pleased to learn about the role Hugh Knox, a Presbyterian pastor, played in young Hamilton’s life. It was Rev. Knox (can he sound more Presbyterian?) who ensured Hamilton was published--an event t...

Pastor Derek is away for a few days but will return with a brand new blog next week. Stay tuned!