One night this semester I was in class, and we were discussing the process of sorting out things we have to do, get to do, want to do, and don’t have to do. It was insightful, and felt very mature in that peculiarly “pastoral” way that many of us here in seminary are aiming for. And a quote came to my mind that felt very apt. Not thinking much about the source, I started to type it into the chat box of our zoom lecture-- something along the lines of “I might not have everything that I want, but I’m grateful for all the things I don’t have that I don’t want.” It then occurred to me that that quote, I was pretty sure, came from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. I laughed at myself, and threw that citation into my message.

So much is happening around us and within us right now. In the business of life, we invite you to take a sacred pause and to listen to and reflect on this song.

I am keeping you in my thoughts as I read through your letter to the Philippians. I can’t say it puts me at ease though, Paul. I’m just a few chapters in and you’re already talking about how much you want to be with Christ. I’m learning a lot in my Pastoral Care and Listening classes and if I might be so bold as to “hunch,” it sounds like you might be having some feelings around our friend Jesus. Frankly, since your potentially guilt ridden reflections have become foundational text for Christianty, I think it is only fair to read them with the knowledge that you definitely have some stuff going on.

To Joan (wherever you are), and the sun at 00.00 today

“We do not know the reason Union extended its hand to Brother West, but given the institution's silence on the issue of Palestine it is my conclusion that it has more to do with West’s fame and academic prowess than his fervent support for Palestine. Yet, despite these covetous intentions, West’s presence at UTS embodies a prophetic call to action.“

“As a half-white, half-Asian daughter of immigrants, I am familiar with these limits. My mixed racial ethnicity has often left me without words to describe my contradictory existence. My parents’ conservative politics leaves me unsure where to place myself within a progressive party that is meant to support family stories like our own. I am unable to comfortably locate myself and my family in the mainstream narratives about immigrant communities and race.”

“In the 18th century, the philosopher Hegel worried in one of his religious works, “the death of God haunts this age.” Long before Nietzsche began to write, Hegel had already seen into the future; today, the sentiment lingers on and most developedly in the Death of God literature made famous by theologians -- or rather theothanatologians -- in the mid twentieth century. Despite all of the attention the Death of God theme got during its heyday, many subthemes of the genre remain under-probed and unchallenged.”

“I am coming to a realization similar to one that Dr. Martin Luther King had in the last years of his life: ending poverty in America is one of the foremost civil rights issues of our time. Why hasn’t this “dream” of ending poverty been realized? What has gotten in our way of realizing it?”