A "free range" pastor, counselor, author

Tag Love Other’s

Don’t Be Fooled By Me

Don’t Be Fooled By Me (by Charles Finn) Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear for I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them… Continue Reading →

Daymaking

Simple Sunday Sermons:  Daymaking.
Facebook Live Video

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On One Foot

On One Foot A rather eccentric looking young man wearing an old brown suit and holding a small, worn, stickered suitcase walked into the center of the city, spun around a few times in the middle of one of the… Continue Reading →

Gate C22

Gate C22 (by Ellen Bass) At gate C22 in the Portland airport a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed a woman arriving from Orange County. They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after the other passengers clicked the handles… Continue Reading →

The Messiah in Disguise

The Messiah in Disguise. A monastery had fallen on hard times. It was once part of a great order which, as a result of religious persecution lost all its branches. It was decimated to the extent that there were only… Continue Reading →

A Party for a Prostitute

A Party for a Prostitute.  (By Tony Campolo in “The Kingdom of God is a Party). If you live on the East Coast and travel to Hawaii, you know that there is a time difference that makes three o’clock in… Continue Reading →

Half Life

Half Life (by Stephen Levine) We walk through half our life as if it were a fever dream barely touching the ground our eyes half open our heart half closed. Not half knowing who we are we watch the ghost… Continue Reading →

Love Story

Love Story (by Wesley McNair) What was opening the door Those years ago to let our four kids One by one followed by the dog Into the backseat of the old compact car We’d parked in the driveway Next to… Continue Reading →

Love is the Cure – Seeing with the X-ray Eyes of Love

Simple Sunday Sermons: Love is the Cure - Seeing with the X-ray Eyes of Love (1 Cor. 13) Facebook Live Video

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Love Cures

“Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” Karl Menninger

100 Years of Beauty

100 Years of Beauty: Aging Video. Every young couple, before getting married should watch this video.  It’s wonderful.  When we’re young we concentrate on the outward beauty, the skin, the form of the one we love.  But isn’t there something… Continue Reading →

100 Years

100 Years (by Five for Fighting). How quickly time flies, but we often don’t even notice it.  How we take for granted that we’ll have many more wonderful years to come.  How we so easily lose perspective and take all… Continue Reading →

Love Does That

Love Does That (by Meister Eckhart) All day long a little burro labors, sometimes with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries about things that bother only burros. And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting… Continue Reading →

Love is the Cure – Practicing Kind Love

Simple Sunday Sermons - Love is the Cure: Practicing Kind Love. (1 Cor. 13:4) Facebook Live Video

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The Last Letter of Major Sullivan Ballou – “Dear Sarah”

The following is a letter written by Maj. Sullivan Ballou to his wife Sarah at home in Rhode Island. Ballou died a week later, at the First Battle of Bull Run. He was 32.  A beautiful letter th...

Twisted Mouth

Twisted Mouth (Written by Surgeon Richard Selzer MD) I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of… Continue Reading →

Love is the Cure – Practicing Patient Love

Simple Sunday Sermons - Love is the Cure: Practicing Patient Love. (1 Cor. 13:4) Facebook Live Video

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Love

Love (by Roy Croft) I love you, Not only for what you are, But for what I am When I am with you. I love you, Not only for what You have made of yourself, But for what You are… Continue Reading →

Not a One!

Not a One! Chad was a shy, quiet little boy. One day he came home and told his mother that he’d like to make a valentine for everyone in his class. Her heart sank. She thought, “I wish he wouldn’t… Continue Reading →

With That Moon Language

With That Moon Language (by Hafiz) Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.” Of course you do not do this out loud; Otherwise, Someone would call the cops. Still though, think about this, This great pull… Continue Reading →

“Danny & Annie” A True Love Story

Danny Perasa and his wife, Annie, came to StoryCorps to recount their twenty-seven-year romance. As they remember their life together from their first date to Danny's final days with terminal can...

The Sweetness of Dogs

The Sweetness of Dogs (by Mary Oliver) What do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. It’s full tonight. So we go and the moon rises, so beautiful it makes… Continue Reading →

How to Change the World?

Simple Sunday Sermons - How to Change the World? Mark 12:30-31) Facebook Live Video

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Lincoln’s Wisdom About Church (Non)Membership

"When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Savior's condensed statement of the substance of both law and Gospel, 'Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself' that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul." Abraham Lincoln

Maybe somehow and in someway this applies to this election season as well about what is most deeply needed?

Choosing to Dance with Mary

Choosing to Dance with Mary “When I was in the sixth grade I was an all-American. I was smart, athletic, witty, handsome–especially with my Vaselined hair wave sweeping back from my forehead. And I was incredibly nice. Things went downhill fast… Continue Reading →

Church Simplified

“Jesus never asked anyone to form a church, ordain priests, develop elaborate rituals and institutional cultures, and splinter into denominations. His two great requests were that we “love one another as I have loved you” and that we share bread and wine together as an open channel of that interabiding love.” Cynthia Bourgeault

It's pretty simple isn't it?!  How did church get so complicated?  So many are hungering to get back to the basics without all the church bureaucracy.  Consider joining my FB group Church Anonymous...

Akido with Love

Akido with love – The train clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. Our car was comparatively empty – a few housewives with their kids, some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at… Continue Reading →

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