Erin Wathen
Come on Over
Constant reader… (the Stephen King nerds just self-identified): i started this blog several years ago to make a little sense of my own life and faith journey. I was a Kentucky person living in the wilderness; i was learning what it meant to be the pastor of a church, and not just ‘a’ pastor, in […]
Out of Joint
I hesitate to say this out loud and jinx myself so–knock on wood, or stucco, or whatever’s handy but–i have not been sick in over a year. Not even a cold or a 24-hour stomach thing. No sinus infection, which i used to get chronically, no upper-respiratory gunk, nothing. I’m not sure what i’ve done […]
Zumba-dy Stop Me
Not surprisingly, my reasons for not going back to Zumba are the very reasons that many, many people visit a church and never go back again
Those Guys are Awesome
Thanks be to God, it isn’t all on me to make or break the work of Christ in the world. But let this story remind each of us, who claim faith in Jesus and service to God, that much is riding on our behavior. Every word we speak, every move we make, every check that we sign, someone is watching for us to prove or disprove their assumptions about us. It might not be fair, but it is absolutely what we signed up for.
The Risk of Relationship
A follow-up to yesterday’s discussion re: “Moral Compromise.” We are talking about the beginnings of transformation. The sharing of real stories, real relationships; engaging open discourse and genuine interest in those we mark as ‘other.’ Time and again we find that once an ‘opinion’ or an ‘issue’ becomes about a real live person, everything changes. That truth goes both ways. […]
Moral Compromise
Newsflash: there is ALWAYS a boy with two dads who needs a place around the campfire. And once it gets personal, it is no longer about popular opinion, or anybody’s opinion. Once a real live person becomes part of the story, that story shifts dramatically…I’m thankful for every little church, every little Cub Scout pack, and every little mining town that is learning to embrace its own, in spite of whatever belief might be ‘popular.’ Rise up singing, people.
For Life. Still.
On this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when emotions run high, it seems an important time to re-post this piece i wrote awhile ago. What has happened to the elusive ‘middle road,’ that place from which people of differing views can see another side, and engage in valuable discussion and discernment to approach difficult topics? […]
Goodness and Truth
It was that lovely week of Christmas when utterly NOTHING happens at church, and we clergy types can lounge in our sweats for days on end, in recovery from the high holy days. Christmas had fallen in that same week of blessed cool weather that the desert gets, just every now in then, when the sun is still shining […]
Another Dream
Holy smokes. I am just getting around to reading Jimmy Carter’s piece about gender inequality in the church. If you haven’t read it yet, please do so today. Even if it feels like preaching to the choir in some of our circles, he speaks far more eloquently and broadly the truth that so many of […]
Irreverin 