Category Archives: Life in General

Asking God to Leave … and to Stay

Let me ask you an obvious question: do you pray in your church services? OK, too easy. Here’s a tougher one: do you expect anything to happen? And here’s the toughest one: what if something happened, and it seemed to … Continue reading

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Interesting moment in Sunday worship

So there I was, singing away on some hymn like I usually do, glad that it had four verses ’cause that meant that I could try to sing all four parts (not at once, although some claim I try that too), when a thought crossed my mind:
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A Book for Artists and Humans of All Kinds

Just finished The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It’s a book about the struggle to create art, to live to our higher calling, and to be and become what we are intended to be. And it has entered a very select category for me: Books That Changed My Life.

If you think that’s hyperbole, think again. Pressfield nails three concepts that any artist — indeed, any human — struggles with daily:

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Brothers and Sisters: The Vertical and the Horizontal

(“Brothers and Sisters” is the weekly prayer-and-share diary on Daily Kos where community members share their burdens and needs, and support one another. I was the host for tonight’s edition, and worked for some hours on it once I got home from church. Unfortunately, somehow my draft version got lost just as I posted it on Daily Kos. I later found it, and since it was too late to post there — and since it is time-specific to today’s lections — I decided to just post it here. If you want to read the comments in the Daily Kos version, it is here. Enjoy! — Bruce)

Tonight’s “Brothers and Sisters” is going to go off in all directions. Well, actually, just two: the vertical and the horizontal. Come on in, pull up a chair, and let’s think about both vertices as we gather together. All are welcome to enter, speak, and share, as little or as much as you wish or need.

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Live Like A Cat

(reflections on a cat on concrete outside a shop in Swansboro, NC)

I think there are many life lessons to be gained by observing cats.

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Changing

For most of my life, I have been seen as an extrovert, by myself and by others. A big “E” on the Myers-Briggs. A Sanguine on the personality types. Comfortable on stage, anxious to be in front, wanting to lead, with a strong need for attention and, I hoped, approval. Loud, boisterous, story-telling, carried away, life of the party, annoying, raucous, fun, never met a stranger — I answer to all of them, and have, pretty much all my life.

But that’s changing.

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A Comment on Lost Friendships

Have you ever had a friendship come to an end, and no matter what you do, you can’t find out why? I have, and it’s frustrating.
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Life As Gift, Live As Gift

Sometimes, when you least expect it, grace breaks in. Sunday night was the Four Churches concert that our church participates in each fall. Having finished my small handbell contribution (we accompanied the first hymn), I sat down to enjoy the … Continue reading

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My Dad versus Liz Trotta

My dad was a journalist.
He was a number of other things as well: son of a preacher, high-school boxer, WWII volunteer, medic during the war, concentration camp liberator. Journalism student at U of Missouri. Reporter, columnist, editor.
But above all, he was a journalist — a “newspaperman,” as he liked to be called. An old-fashioned, get-it-right newspaperman.
And on this Memorial Day, as I watch the Liz Trotta clip, I’m thinking of him and what he would say.
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Two Sunday Morning Blessings

Some of my friends and readers know that one of my lives is that of a musician. It’s interesting how compartmentalized our lives are; many of my co-workers have no idea of this part of me, or of my long … Continue reading

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