We all like backstories. I especially enjoy the stories behind songs. Did you know Paul McCartney’s original working title for “Yesterday” was “Scrambled Eggs”? Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” was originally titled “In The Garden of Eden,” but the lead singer was so inebriated he could not pronounce the words – so they left the title the only way he could say it. Recently, I re ...[Read More]
A Cold and Broken Hallelujah
Snakes on a Plain
There are very few passages in Scripture as graphic and frightening as God’s sending “fiery serpents” in response to the grumbling of the people. Everywhere they turn – like Indiana Jones in the pit of vipers – they are surrounded by them. In a desperate panic they plead with Moses to pray that the Lord would take away the snakes: “So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when an ...[Read More]
Jesus is Just Alright
In the last few years I have been paying closer attention to some deep shifts affecting the church. It’s easy for Boomers to label Millennials and say, “They’ll come around when they have a few more years of life under their belt,” but the truth is while a number of these changes are welcome, there are some that are fundamental and, frankly, disturbing. One of these is the growing attraction to se ...[Read More]
The Bosom of Fools
In his documentary film, “Korengal,” author and director Sebastian Junger recounts the stories of a platoon of American soldiers deployed to a tiny and dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. The “grinding boredom gives way to bowel-emptying fear, followed sometimes by episodes of nearly psychedelic blood lust and the frankly sexual pleasure of unleashing a .50-caliber machine gun on e ...[Read More]