TAKING A KNEE I saw it only briefly, yet I cannot get the image out of my mind. I guess I am not meant to get it out my mind. Or out of my heart. His name was George Floyd. He was not another black man being murdered. He was not a statistic. He was a man with a name and a history and a family and a future. Except that future was taken away. Brutally. Violently. Senselessly. Shamefully. Amid disempowered bystanders crying for mercy for the suffocating man. George Floyd. The image of that white officers knee firmly in place on George Floyd's neck haunts me. I cannot get it out of my mind. I guess I am not supposed to. What do I do with

HORSES, WATER, AND SACRED SERVICE “You can lead a horse to water…” Well, you know the rest. I was never easily led to water, or anywhere else for that matter. I have always been cautious about what the water had really done for the one seeking to lead me. If it appeared that the proverbial water had done something beneficial for you, I may well follow you and take a drink. If you speak about the water as being helpful in one way, yet how you live exhibits something entirely different, I am not interested in being led. Not by you. Not by anyone. It does not matter how many others may be sipping or gulping. I want to literally test the waters before I will follow

Who is Dying? I’m dying. I am not. That distinction has set me free. In a time of veracious global illness and vast dying there is an invitation to open into the inescapable truth that I’m dying. Most likely not today. In all probability not anytime soon. And yet even that is questionable. The only thing that is beyond question is that it will happen. Equally beyond question is that I am will never die. There is a tension of sorts between those two unquestionable truths. One day the who of me will release its final exhalation and this incarnation will be ended. The what of I am will remain unaffected. The what may well carry on becoming another who. Unlearned lessons will move with that final

JOGGING WHILE BLACK I guess it is the price you pay for jogging while black. I am not in any way making a joke. I at first felt as if typing those words was making me sick. Then I realized I was typing the words from a deep sick feeling down inside of me. News reposts tell me that a young black man was hunted and gunned down for basically being black. For jogging while being black. How could that be? When I was in my early teens a high school senior in my home congregation decided to bring a friend of hers to church. I recall vividly looking down the hallway as Jennifer and her friend approached from the opposite end of the hall. It is