Unemployed Theologian

'My pastor, Veronica, one Sunday told the story of a sparrow lying in the street with its legs straight up in the air, sweating a little under its feathery arms. A warhorse walks up to the bird and asks, "What on earth are you doing?" The sparrow replies, "I heard the sky was falling, and I wanted to help." The horse laughs a big, loud, sneering horse laugh, and says, "Do you really think you're going to hold back the sky, with those scrawny little legs?" And the sparrow says, "One does what one can."' ~ Anne Lamott, Stitches Hope is a funny thing. You don't realize you need it until you suddenly find yourself without it. It's intangible, almost metaphysical, yet quantifiably necessary for survival. Scripture implores us to abide in it, reminds us of its utter importance (second only to love and tied with faith), yet counterintuitively does not seem to provide much definition for it. And in a season when life seems inte...

Prologue: The Jesus Prayer goes like this: "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me." Remember that. It will be important. Act 1: Delilah I have officially decided to name my new car Delilah, because she is on the one hand beautiful and on the other a harlot who has betrayed me. The list of pickles she's gotten me into is getting longer and more maddening by the day, and the memory of one of the more harrowing of said pickles is still fresh, having taken place not two months ago on the way back to Newberg from an interview in Portland. You guys tried that picasa photo editor? Really easy way to make your car look like it's in a comic book. The interview was for a position in Young Life's Associate Program, a dream job of mine except that it would require me to live wherever they might place me, rather than in Springfield where I had resolved to go after graduation. My interviewers and I reached this impasse at the end of the interview, them telling me I wo...