Thinking Outloud

There are many voices talking about the 9/11 10th anniversary in our country. While I understand the traumatic impact that day has on our time in national history, I am puzzled why the Oklahoma City bombing, a domestic terrorism event, doesn't hold the same power. Perhaps it is easier to focus on 9/11 because it involves an outside enemy. Oklahoma City was perpetrated by a couple of good ol' white boys who hated our country's government. That is way scarier for us to face than an enemy force abroad. Among the very few I want to hear talk about 9/11 this weekend is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. I give thanks to God for her, her words, and her mission to lead one corner of the Christian tribe in service, worship and community. Thank you, Bishop Katharine. I'm listening. Bishop's brief reflection on 9.11

We dropped our first born off at university this week. We have spent the last year plus supporting him as he got ready. From taking AP classes and exams, to doing half of his senior year of high school at our community college, our son was looking forward. We thought frequently about how the transition to college would be for us all, and he and I often would tell each other that we would certainly miss one another and that it would, yes, feel very weird. Well, it does. I didn't even shed a tear until I walked into the house after we drove home without him. Our house, minus one of our children, just doesn't feel like our home. Walking into his bedroom brought me to tears. The boy is gone, at least until Thanksgiving break, and I have to get used to the change. We left him seeming excited and confident, and for that, I am deeply grateful. He is competent to meet the academic challenges ahead, and has support for everything else. I've been comforted by the texts we have

Thanks, Mary.

With news this morning that Tiger missed the cut in the latest PGA tournament, sports journalists are beginning to comment on his astonishing fall from golf and sports greatness. It does seem as if his personal and professional troubles have created a failure that reminds us of an airplane in free fall. How could someone with such unusual talent lose it so disastrously? There is something of gloating in all this talk, too. After all, who among us doesn't feel just a bit of pleasure in seeing the untouchable hero now seem so human? While the sports writers opine over this and that detail, it seems sadly simple to me. He is suffering, and his life is demonstrating the difficulty he is having holding all the pieces of his super-star world together. What propelled him to greatness - his focus, consistency, precision, unflappability - are all possible because he once managed an internal calm. Even if that calm was managed, or maybe controlled, even masked, by dozens of handlers, unl

It's Thursday night, and I have more writing deadlines. I'm late on my professional blog post at GoodTherapy.org (again), and I have a sermon to do for Sunday. For the first 12 years of my parish ministry life, I preached about 46 Sunday sermons a year. I had time away for vacation, and occasionally for continuing education, or a bout with laryngitis, or a special guest preacher, but otherwise, I had a deadline every week. In addition, each year I had a half dozen Lenten sermons to write, a dozen or more funeral sermons to prepare, half a dozen wedding sermons, and a dozen or more newsletter columns to do. When I joined a staff for my last 8 years in the parish, the rhythm slowed to about every third Sunday plus the added services which I led. That's a lot of writing to the clock. That's a lot of writing, period . I know I learned to cope with this demand while an English major in college. What I remember most about my Major are the piles of papers I had to produce in