Prairie Musings

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8). Think about whatever is true….well, I’m thinking it’s true that nobody wants to hear a sermon when there’s feasting to be done…so let’s do a sort of mediation together instead. Close your eyes for just a minute…breathe deeply, so deeply, you can listen to your breath in the quiet of the room…Feel your lungs fill with air and them empty, and fill again… Where have you been in your life that has deeply affected you emotionally, intellectually, physically or spiritually? The places you have visited, the places you have worked, the places you have lived…these have provided you with experiences that shape who you are today. What is one place in particular that has given you strength and inspiration? Picture that place fo...

Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive. Luke20:38 There have been 187 zombie movies made in the last 10 years…20 or so in the last 12 months! Truth be told, Lisa and the kids and I are really looking forward over Thanksgiving to watching the release of the sequel to Zombieland , one of our favorites. Do dead things come back to life? Do dead people come back to life? Will we come back to life? The Sadducees in today’s Gospel reading were certain the answer is “no,” but surely these questions have, since the beginning of human consciousness, been one of the most fundamental ones we ask. The Sadducees were a group of leaders and priests in the temple at Jerusalem, of high aristocratic status. They rejected the authority of oral tradition and any later writings, saying that only the five books of Moses, the Torah were to be used, and denying belief in resurrection or angels or the Spirit. According to them, everything ends with deat...