Earth Day—40 Years

Earth Day—40 Years


Earth Day—40 Years

I was finishing eighth grade and getting ready for confirmation when the first earth day was celebrated in 1970. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin helped organize the first Earth Day as an awareness raising event. Over the years, Earth Day has provided an opportunity both to take stock of human impact on earth and to call people to action that they might take better care of it

Earth Day: together with all creatures

Earth Day: together with all creatures


Earth Day: together with all creatures

I blog elsewhere about the adventures (and misadventures) of trying my hand with a small hobby farm. Most of the time, the joys and struggles of that life with some land do not intersect in any obvious way with my life and vocation at the Seminary. (Although there are hopeful signs that my worlds might be ..


The Medart is dead


The Medart is dead

John's Town Hall, RIP My good friend and colleague Chris Born and I walked a few blocks from Concordia Seminary today to have lunch at one of our regular haunts, John’s Town Hall , on Skinker in the Dorchester. The place was empty. Closed

World Water Day

World Water Day


World Water Day

March 22 provides an opportunity consider one of the most basic needs of life that we can easily take for granted. Water is one of those support webs that connects, supports, sustains, and enriches all life on earth. Put a bird bath in your yard and watch them come! We face two water issues


Dante’s Inferno and the simulacrum of hell


Dante’s Inferno and the simulacrum of hell

I haven’t owned a video gaming system since my parents got my brother and me the original Nintendo. But I’ve seen the commercials for “Dante’s Inferno” a number of times now, and I confess I’m captivated. Not that I intend to buy it. The real Dante’s Inferno is one of the great works of world literature, and still defines much of our visual mythology of hell. (This despite the fact that, for Dante, hell was freezing cold rather than burning hot.)..


Latina ethics scholar to speak at Concordia Seminary


Latina ethics scholar to speak at Concordia Seminary

María Teresa Dávila Noted ethics scholar Dr. María Teresa Dávila will speak at Concordia Seminary tomorrow night, Thursday, March 18, at 7:00PM. A professor at Andover Newton Theological School, she will be giving the fifth Annual Lecture in Hispanic/Latino Theology and Missions of Concordia’s Center for Hispanic Studies (CHS). The theme for Dr. Dávila’s lecture is “ Unión, Reunión y Comunión : Latino/a Religious Diversity and the Wager of Ecumenical Communion.”..

Welcomed Guests

Welcomed Guests


Welcomed Guests

Quite a few visitors stopped by to dine in our yard this winter. Most came after a fresh blanket of snow had fallen or when the temperature dropped into the teens.  White-throated sparrows from the boreal forests of Canada joined our local residents of Cardinals, Chickadees, Tit-mice, Carolina Wrens, Hairies, and Downies. Our surprise guest of honor was a tiny Ruby-crested kinglet. His constant flitting made it initially difficult for me to identify him


Animal “rights?”


Animal “rights?”

My colleague, Tim Saleska, put me on to an op-ed in the New York Times regarding a ballot initiative that was passed by Californians to ban certain factory farm practices. In particular, it states that farm animals cannot be confined for their entire lives to cages in which they cannot move

The Vanguard of the New Creation

The Vanguard of the New Creation


The Vanguard of the New Creation

Sometimes I wonder if we conservative Christians have become what might be called second and third article Christians (that is we care only about the second & third articles of the Nicene Creed). In other words, we think of Jesus as the one who gets us to heaven with the result that we then regard creation as of little importance by comparison