Month: November 2012

Art, Prayer, Spirituality, Thankfulness, Thanksgiving4 Comments

Thanksgiving

Gary Furr

Anne Lamott has written a new book called Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential PrayersI This represents a considerable development in her theology of prayer, because she said in an earlier work that there were really only two variations of prayer–“Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” so I look forward this expanded theology!   I haven’t read it yet–I will–but “wow” seems fitting.  I believe part of the artistic vision is to tromp around in those parts of reality that hunger from neglect by politicians (a finishing school for becoming a world class … Continue reading Thanksgiving

Anger, Conflict, Culture, Ethics, Forgiveness, Hope, humanity, Love, Manners, Modern Life4 Comments

Cynicism and Forgiveness

Gary Furr

“Forgiveness” is my wife’s favorite song on my new CD.  (Click HERE to listen to the song)  The chorus goes:

It’s impossible to give forgiveness

It’s even worse to have to ask

If letting go is the answer

Living like it’s gone is the task.

How else you going to deal with the past?

Lance Armstrong and General Petraeus in one year are maybe more than we can take, even in our jaded time.  I find myself turning it all off more and more just to preserve my soul.  Cynicism can cripple the spirit.  It can rest on the belief that everything is a con, everybody is out to get you, all politicians are evil, and all human beings’ motives are bad.  While Christians might be seen to have a lot in common with that, what with the fall of humanity and all, I’m here to say, “Not really.”

The Christian gospel is not as much about how bad we are as that God knows it and loves us anyway.  Sin is not what lives on at the end of the day.  Its moment is the middle of a Friday with a dark sky and a rugged cross and a man yelling, “It is finished.”  But the last word is an empty tomb, followed by a hopeful church, a Holy Spirit, and a kingdom to come.

So as Thanksgiving approaches, it might do well for us to think about how to defeat it in our lives.  I want to offer two helpful practices from our faith that can be an antidote to cynicism. Continue reading “Cynicism and Forgiveness”

Christianity, Environment, Faith, Modern Life, Politics, Poverty, Suffering, Theology, Theology and Life9 Comments

Sandy Calls

Gary Furr
Sandy bearing down on the Northeast

I had many thoughtful calls about Hurricane Sandy because I have a daughter in New York City and another in New York State.  Both, thankfully, escaped the worst of it, neither even experienced a power outage.  They had friends, of course, who did.  But inevitably, an avalanche of odd theological statements come forth.
Speculation on natural disasters are not, of course, new.  A few people said, “God is telling us something.”  Having been through a tornado that hit my church many years ago, I wince at such statements, especially since the tornado spared every part of our proposed expansion program and hit every part that we had not considered, namely the offices and the sanctuary, where it ripped a hole in the roof right over the pulpit, which a few sawdust trail preachers in town suggested was payback for our liberalism (we ordain women and are open to all races and do not marginalize divorced persons, and have practiced these ways since the 1970s).

Continue reading “Sandy Calls”