I have a modest guitar collection if you compare to some. Each instrument I have and play, though, is as unique as a child. Each has its own “voice,” and no two instruments are exactly alike, even if they are … Continue reading A Guitar for Christmas: Remembering Dad
When I was a pastor in South Georgia, our congregation had a member by the name of Senator Jimmy Hodge Timmons. He went by “Hodge” around the church, and he was our state senator in the legislature and I think during his time he worked hard to be a friend of the community an effective representative. One year while I was there, Hodge came to me and invited me to be the Chaplain of the day for the Georgia Senate. This was an honorary event when you would come and offer a devotional and prayer for the elected representatives. It’s … Continue reading Chaplain of the Day
The phrase “love your neighbor as yourself,” which appears in nearly all religions as what we often call the “Golden Rule,” is the rule of reciprocity—love as you wish to be loved, treat others as you wish to be treated. Now this seems almost imbecilically obvious except that we are living through a ghastly moment of stupidity in our public life. “Strength” is exalted across the world by rightward mobs in reactionary anxiety of cultural and societal erosion. These changes, in my view, are mostly our own creations due to endless speeding up of life, isolation by our technologies of … Continue reading Love Your Neighbor–part 1
Chris Hayes, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became theWorld’s Most Endangered Resource. Penguin Random House, 2025 and Nicholas Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024. The latest issue of Christian Ethics Today has come out. I wrote an extensive twin review in the issue about these two excellent books that are well worth your time. A couple of short quotes from the review. Chris Hayes is the well known host of MSNBCs All In. From Hayes’ book: Nicholas Carr has written another book that profoundly shaped my understanding of the current technological … Continue reading AI, Social Media and the Future of Us
A conviction, my late friend Jim McClendon used to say, is that which, should you cease to believe it would mean you were no longer you. The sacrifice of Ukraine and appeasement of Vladimir Putin is appalling. Who are we? I’ve watched our new Vice President scold Germany and Europe for not holding hands with the far right. In a press conference, the President essentially turned the three year war into a giant misunderstanding that should never have happened at all. There is plenty of blame to go around, going back to failure to oppose the annexation of Crimea enough … Continue reading Not Everything is a Deal
The Flatpickin' Pilgrim's Progress 