Author Archives
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Behind the Notes
In an article about stage fright in the New Yorker magazine Joan Acocella writes, “As musicians, especially, will tell you, what they are doing up there is not meeting an agreed-upon goal but, rather, creating something new. Vladimir Horowitz [the great… Read More ›
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“I Don’t Want to Hate.”
In August of 2014 the nation awoke to the news of the death James Foley, the journalist who had been kidnapped while covering the civil war in Syria. A YouTube video had been uploaded by the so-called Islamic State documenting… Read More ›
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Hiding
What is the Universe calling you to do? Are you answering that call? If not? Why not? I ask these questions because I need to be asking them of myself. Periodically, life circumstances allow me to be reinvented. (It’s part… Read More ›
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Be Healed
“Quit trying to figure everything out!” Why do I keep hearing this in my head? I don’t even remember who used to say this to me. A therapist or teacher? Periodically, this admonition rises to the mucky surface… Read More ›
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In One Place
The importance of having a strong sense of community and an awareness of its benefits is well known to those who work for social justice and seek to build grassroots-based movements that serve the wellbeing of the individuals… Read More ›
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Waiting
In the late 1970’s I lived in a fifth floor walk-up railroad flat in a Hell’s Kitchen tenement at a time when the Irish mob still controlled much of that section of Manhattan and it was considered undesirable by the… Read More ›
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Stranger Danger?
While pastoring a congregation, I’m usually up before sunrise on Sundays and at my desk finishing the morning’s sermon and pulling together whatever else is needed for worship. I don’t have much of an appetite at that time of day… Read More ›
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It’s Not About Me
It’s not about me, yet it is about me. It isn’t about us, yet it is about us. “Say what?” That’s probably what the disciples where also thinking when Jesus said, “..let them deny themselves and take up their cross… Read More ›
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Still Needed
“Hello, Stephen. This is Dr. Kroll’s office. We just got a call from the hospital. The radiologist found a number of dark spots, but can’t tell if they’re in your lungs or ribs so wants you to get a CAT… Read More ›
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Sweet Sorrow
Even though it happened more than twenty years ago I remember it as though it were yesterday. It was a hot summer afternoon and I had gone to my neighborhood supermarket to buy groceries. While in the produce section my… Read More ›
