Hospitality for the Coming Age

I stumbled across theologian and historian Martin Marty discussing building cultures of trust on Speaking of Faith (first person). Check it out!
Such cultures of trust and relationships of depth and constancy will be our only hope as we move through fear, greed, scarcity and judgment. Marty is moved by the sentiment that “we are members, [...]

Every once in awhile I hear a story about someone transforming a moment of violence or theft, and I am moved. It’s like a peace activist’s dream come true – to have an opportunity to put all those theories to the test and find a humanizing outcome.
I have learned a lot about sustainable living and [...]

“There is no waste, only creative challenges to find meaning and new opportunity,” I wrote last fall, as I developed my “metaphor for ministry.”
Throughout this year I have continually been drawn to the art of avoiding waste. I have planned many, many meals around food left to rot in seminary fridges (and therefore eaten much [...]

We just moved into a new house that we really love. We’ve been anticipating living here for months, and now that we are it feels like a treat – even with half-empty boxes still littered about, and a long list of to-do projects.
I am excited to give tours, but find myself making lots of apologies [...]

“Is there still room in the church for Thomas?” asks Reverend Jim Rigby of the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.
St. Andrews, Jim Rigby and atheist Robert Jensen have come under scrutiny since Jensen officially joined the church. This all happened a couple years ago, but I’m just reading about it now (thanks, Kelly, [...]

The Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren is truly sharing in the midst of scarcity! Especially in a city, land for graveyards is hard to come by (and even if it’s available, it may not be appropriately used as such). So the Highland Avenue CoB is sharing a beautiful garden for the classiest communal grave!
Read [...]

2. Amount of food grown for the meat industry
Does this even need to be mentioned? 1 pound of beef requires 8 pounds of grain (and tons of water, and leaves a bunch of pollution, but I’ll get to that later). Eating the grain would have saved everyone a lot of time, money and been gentler [...]

I get a lot of blank and bemused stares when I talk about food insecurity. Perhaps people are picturing a silo full of corn saying, “Please don’t make me go out there, I’m SO shy….” Now that WOULD be ridiculous. But the image of bountiful food not leaving storage is one accurate piece of food [...]

We look at monarchy and divine rule and communism and think that those people were duped by the ones in power.
We look at our society and government and pride ourselves on our enlightenment and freewill and liberty.
In truth, we have been duped as well, by weapons manufacturers telling us we need military to be safe, [...]

Eating locally may feel like an enormous challenge – and doing so 100% of the time really is! I hadn’t realized how well I was raised until I started doing my own grocery shopping and learned how expensive vegetables are at the grocery (especially salad in December, which is still my weakness). So if it’s [...]