Ask The Popcorn Man

REMEMBER WHEN ON social occasions you responded with lightning quick accuracy to the question “What do you do?" You sat easily with family and friends in a circle of equality. That was then. Things have changed. Imagine. You are either unemployed or underemployed but you have memories of "gainful employment." Now you are increasingly angered by the embarrassing question, "...and what do you do?" The circle of equality now seems distorted by your presence. You feel unproductive and unacceptable. "All they need are good jobs," a friend of mine once bellowed. “Work projects - that would improve their images, get them

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Ripping The Roof Off

YEARS AGO, I read with admiration and excitement about a Christian philosopher who "ripped the roof" off his theological system, examined what was there, and started over again from scratch. Becoming as agnostic as humanly possible, he read broadly in Christian and philosophical thought for two years. He quit all his teaching and associations with the church. When I read the results of his experiment, I was unimpressed by his conclusions but had to admit that I admired his approach and the courage it took to undergo such a vulnerable evaluation. I'd like to say that I voluntarily followed

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Fear of the Lord

IF PERFECT LOVE casts out all fear, how can fear of the Lord be the beginning of knowledge, understanding and wisdom? My experience confirms the returns of love but adamantly denies fear's benefit.

While trapped in circumstances self-constructed or brought on by misfortune, the assurance of being loved has calmed and focused my guilty, anxious mind. Love experienced as an unexpected gift has turned meaningless tragedies into moments of contemplation, gratitude and even 

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Who Do You Say I Am

"WHAT ARE THEY saying about me? What do you think about me?" Everybody has asked these questions but when Jesus of Nazareth posed them to his friends at Caesarea-Philippi, an ancient Roman cosmopolitan city on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, he started a discussion that continues to baffle, enrage and inspire people two millennia later. I have always wondered if these were real or trick questions. Was Jesus cornering Peter into giving the right dogmatic answer, later to be included in sacred writings, or was this an open question addressed to all people? I don't want

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Ralph Waldo Emerson's Harvard Divinity Address

The average temperature in Boston during the summer of 1838 was a stifling 90 degrees Fahrenheit - hot enough to cause the six graduates and a select group of esteemed guests to loosen their starched collars as they crowded into the tiny side chapel at Harvard Divinity School for the graduation address. Neither diminutive numbers nor heat would dampen the refreshing gust of thought and inspiration that Ralph Waldo Emerson brought that day. No matter how claustrophobic the physical space or the minds of his listeners, Emerson's reflections opened onto vistas of spirit that

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Standing Alone Together

THERE IS A mind-boggling connection between creation and chaos. This unexpected synergy applies not only to creation's emergence from the primordial chaos but is mysteriously operational when people's spiritual foundations have crumbled. It is revealing that the Genesis creation accounts were woven together, as the poetry of the dispossessed, during a time of the exile and crisis of faith. Disorientation in communities and in individuals has a peculiar way of resulting in an inspired movement toward creativity and re-orientation. When we at Watershed were flailing around, wrestling God, shadowboxing in the post ‘91 period, many of us felt on the

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Ash Wednesday

My first encounter of Ash Wednesday was while I had a job at St. Joseph's Vocational School in Winnipeg. Being the only Protestant working there, I was shocked, even somewhat horrified, and leery to ask why every student and our teacher Irene Coulter had a black, cross-like smudge on their foreheads as they entered room. Choosing not to see it as a weird hallucination, I decided to ask what those smudges were about. Irene, a none-too-observant Catholic, gave me the formal answer, "Ash Wednesday is the day that kicks off Lent, a run up to Easter for Catholics." "Okay," I

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Defining Christian Spirituality

We're basing our studies on the book Christian Spirituality by Lawrence Cunningham. Our focus is trying to figure out what Christian spirituality means. Spirituality is a phrase that's pretty common these days, as people like to use it instead of religion. Religion feels boxed in or institutional whereas spirituality feels more open and interpretive. But Paul talked about how the way that we enter spirituality needs to engage the tradition that we're part of. Having a general definition of spirituality (such as having a sense of a higher benevolent power) is good in that it allows connection to people of

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Hippies, Hindus, and Trancendentalists

The title I have chosen for a discussion of Emerson's essay, The Transcendentalist, comes from a similar title by Bob Larsen: Hippies, Hindus and Rock and Roll. In his book, Larsen tries to set up nefarious connections between the occultic and pagan world of deepest darkest Africa and India. His thesis is that because rock and roll has a connection to these cultures of paganism it participates in their demonic underpinnings. The reason I chose to parody his title is not only to get some secret revenge on Larsen, who is so obviously racist and simplistic, but also because

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Types of Christian Spirituality

We started on the interesting note that if you were to bring up the topic of spirituality 30 years ago, there wouldn't necessarily be a lot to talk about: one definition of spirituality existed. This was because in general people weren't talking about spirituality except in Roman Catholic circles. Protestants tended to avoid the term spirituality. They were more likely to use the terms holiness, godliness, or discipleship in describing a life lived in relationship to God. But now you can't say the word spirituality and expect Christians to know what you mean because there are so many different expressions

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