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Mid-Week Missive |
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| Author: | Brad Miller | Created: | 10/30/2007 2:52 AM |  | | What is happening at BCC? |
| Living an Easter Life | |
| By Brad Miller on3/26/2008 3:31 PM | |
| Greetings on this gorgeous spring day!
Yesterday, I had the privilege of going to a presentation by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author/poet, Alice Walker. She is most famous for having written the novel “The Color Purple”, but has also written 20 some other books of poetry and essays, as well as several other novels such as “The Temple of My Familiar.” It was a fascinating time of hearing an author read selections from her own work, in her own voice, interspersed with commentary and reflections upon 50 years of the writing life.
All of the selections she read evoked amazing images in my mind, and I was absolutely enthralled with Ms. Walker’s ability to make the written word come alive, to sing, to touch hundreds of people at once. One of the readings in particular really hit me. The story was one of her role in a protest march and the importance of activism on all levels. She described her feelings at being in the midst of these people as they stood up for wha ... |  | |
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| | The Hardest Week | |
| By Brad Miller on3/25/2008 9:04 AM | |
| Greetings!
This is a hard week.
As I look out my window I see a gray sky accompanied by a steady cold rain. In many ways, the gloom of the day mirrors what we feel as we move this week we call “Holy.” When I stop and really think about what was happening during that firs Holy Week, I can scarce take it all in. I can’t even imagine what the people who lived through it the first time coped.
First, there are the disciples of Jesus. Jesus is sending them cryptic messages about his not being around much longer, and that must have been confusing. They witnessed a joyous occasion when they entered Jerusalem, but that was to give way to even more confusion as Jesus is arrested later in the week. Their anger with their brother Judas must have led them to want to lash out, but they were overcome with a fear that drove them into hiding. And as they abandoned Jesus, can you imagine the guilt that must have induced in them? While they hid, Jes ... | | |
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| | The Warm Embrace of Family | |
| By Brad Miller on3/5/2008 2:38 PM | |
| Greetings on this lovely day,
There are days when God seems distant and aloof. Those can be lonely and hard times, even if we have faith that God is there. When we find ourselves in those times we yearn for God’s presence, we long for the warm embrace of God’s love, we want nothing more than to be comforted by God’s grace. These are times when the importance of being part of a faith community is so very clear.
I don’t think we can overestimate the importance of the faith community in helping us through the tough times. When we find it difficult to discern God’s presence, for whatever reason, our church family can and does help fill that void. When we can claim membership in a faith community, we are surrounded by people who will help us when we are down, care for us when we are ill, pray for us when we are unable to pray, and celebrate with us when are restored spiritually and physically. When we claim membership in a faith community, we have a family alway ... | | |
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| | God is Good! | |
| By Brad Miller on2/21/2008 10:02 AM | |
| Greetings on this grey morning,
There is a woman who lives in our apartment complex that moved in about 2 years ago. She is, I would guess, in her 70’s and we introduced ourselves as her grandchildren were helping her move in. Her name is Dolly and for years she has made her living as a child care worker in a church child development center. She told us she was an active member of her church and was thrilled when she found out that both Carol and I were ministers. She asked lots of questions about Brookhaven and Decatur Christian churches and never failed to greet us with a smile and a sincere inquiry into our health, how the church was doing, etc.
About a year ago, I noticed that her car was in the parking lot during the day. I ran into someone coming to visit her and they told me that she had been very ill with congestive heart failure and other ailments and was having a very difficult time. I sent her my best and told the caregiver where our apartment w ... | | |
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| | Feasting and Fasting | |
| By Brad Miller on2/6/2008 10:48 AM | |
| Greetings on this gloomy Ash Wednesday,
There could hardly be two more divergent days than Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Where I come from, Shrove Tuesday (or as some call it, Fat Tuesday) is heartily celebrated as the time to load up on all the things that you should give up during Lent: strong drink, fattening entrees, too-sweet desserts, general overindulgence. I grew up in a heavily Roman Catholic area and lots of folks in my neighborhood took both days very seriously! After a night of overindulgence on Tuesday, vows were made that alcohol, chocolate, smoking, swearing, red meat and other pleasures would be given up for the 40 days of Lent. But, hey, the Sundays aren’t counted among the 40 days! So, it was not unusual for folks giving up alcohol and red meat to say things like: “After church, let’s go out for a steak and a drink.” Kind of makes me wonder what the people who gave up swearing said on Sunday. But, I digress.
This juxtaposition of Feastin ... | | |
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| | Faith and Politics | |
| By Brad Miller on1/31/2008 9:19 AM | |
| Okay: enough. This stuff is starting to bug me now.
Never have religion and faith been such talked about issues in our political process. Oh, there were questions in the 1960 election as to whether a practicing Roman Catholic could be President and be trusted to do what was best for the country rather than follow the “instructions” of the pope. Just about the time that the question began to seem very antiquated, the same questions now surface with a candidate who is a devout Mormon. Reporters begin asking questions like, are Mormons really Christians or is it a cult? Will the power structure of the Mormon church dictate their wishes to a Mormon President? Then, we saw a candidate come on the scene who was once a pastor and a self-declared evangelical Christian. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity among reporters and pundits talking about “the evangelical vote” and their power in this election. Then a candidate who had a non-Christian father has had the “authenticity” of his Chris ... | | |
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| | Resolved | |
| By Brad Miller on1/24/2008 9:56 AM | |
| Well, we are now firmly into the New Year and let me be the first to ask: how are your resolutions going? It’s a loaded question, isn’t it? We sometimes make grand plans that have little hope of being fulfilled, then we get frustrated and pretty soon we have dropped the whole thing altogether. So, I’m not trying to rub salt in the wound; I only bring it up because I have had a few of you ask me about something I said in a sermon the last Sunday of 2007. It had to do with a resolution that I had pledged myself to this year, and challenged the congregation to do the same. For those who asked (and for those who didn’t) here it is: In 2008, I resolve to honor God, to do what God would have me do, so that I might be the person God would have me be.
This could take in a whole lot of things, couldn’t it? Exercise, eating right, stopping smoking, spending more time with your family, learning something new… they all involve a similar thing. That is, being a good steward of what God has gi ... | | |
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| | Remembering | |
| By Brad Miller on1/16/2008 3:48 PM | |
| It’s funny how something simple like a certain smell, a song, a not-often-heard phrase, a ray of light through a colored window, can take you back to a certain time or place in our lives. Today, I have experienced that feeling in a couple of ways.
First, when the weather forecaster laid out what might be in store for us over the next 36 hours, I was taken right back to getting up early when I was a boy and waiting to hear on the radio whether our school district was one of those that had called off school because of a snow storm. It is a wonderful sense of anticipation as they slowly go through the names of the different districts and they are on the “b’s” – Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham…then they finally get to the “c’s” – Canton, Clarkston…. “C’mon,” we would say, “get to the “d’s” already!” And then they started…Davison, Dexter…wait, that means they went right by “Detroit”! The sad truth is that Detroit schools almost never shut down. Most of us could walk to school, so why would they? But ... | | |
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| | A New Beginning...Again | |
| By Brad Miller on12/19/2007 12:44 PM | |
| Greetings!
I bet you have heard the old brainteaser that asks, “Do Christmas and New Years Day ever fall in the same year?” Our first inclination may be to say no, but of course they do – every year! Still, there is something appealing to me to look at Christmas as happening “this year”, while New Years Day will always be “next year.” And this is not just because I am a baseball fan and “next year” is the eternal cry of everyone who didn’t win the World Series this year. (Although, we Detroit Tigers fans have every reason to believe that “next year” is finally going to be “the year”. Witness the trade that brought Miguel Cabrera AND Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers last week…it has Peter Gammons calling the Tigers “a modern era ‘Murderers Row’…the team to beat in 2008.” But, I digress…)
There is no doubt that the new year offers us a psychological new start in lots of ways. New Years resolutions abound on January 1st as we all try to use this important, if artificial, starting poin ... | | |
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| | Memorable Lines and Great Stories | |
| By Brad Miller on12/13/2007 1:45 PM | |
| I read scripture the same way I watch movies. Sometimes the breadth and the depth of the story is so wonderful that I may not be able to recount a single line of dialogue but the point is so clearly and beautifully made that I will never forget it. For me, “Sophie’s Choice” was such a movie. I don’t recall any scenes or speeches, but the agony of “the choice” haunts me to this day.
Sometimes, a movie is great and has some lines that are just as memorable as the story…remember any of these? “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid”…”God made me fast, and when I run, I feel God’s pleasure”…”You ask me why I am crying. I’m crying because I don’t know if I love you anymore, and I don’t know if I can go on without that.” (If you can identify all three of those great movies, let me know and you will have my unending respect!)
Occasionally, the story is not that great or even awful, but a memorable line will never leave my psyche. Who knows this line and can tell me what bad m ... | | |
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