Sturtz Stuff

In May 2012 Marina Keegan graduated from Yale University. She wrote an essay for her graduating class entitled “The Opposite of Loneliness.” Part of her essay reads: We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place. It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together and are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s 4 am and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group texts. This scares me more than finding the right job or city or spouse. I'm scared of losing the web we’re in....

On August 8, 2011, just before sunrise, two car loads of white teens hit the road of Jackson Mississippi. They had been drinking through the night. At some point in the early morning they came to the conclusion that their mission was to find any black person and just mess them up. It did not take long to find their victim walking across the parking lot of the Metro Inn on the outskirts of town. His name was James Craig. James was a 49 year old autoplant worker and was walking to his car. The group attacked Anderson, beat him up and robbed him.  One of the teens, Deryl Dedmon Jr., after participating in the beat down took things to another level. While James was on the ground injured from his beating, Deryl walked over to his Ford F150. He turned his truck on and ran James over, killing him. It would be easy to write off this act off as the alcohol-fueled actions of some teennagers gone wild. But they didn’t set out to mess with just anyone. They purposely sought out someone who had...

It was a cool day in October. I was standing in the backyard of my parents' home. My Dad had asked me to put up a snow fence that ran across one side of the backyard. My parents' home was at the end of the street and surrounded by farmland on three sides. During the winter months, the wind would blow across the open farmland and pile snow on their driveway. Putting up the snow fence limited the amount of snow that would pile up in the driveway.  My Dad was concerned that he would not be able to get the fence up before winter. By this time my Dad had been fighting cancer for several months and his physical strength had diminished. The chemo treatments along with the aggressive nature of the cancer had zapped his body of energy and muscle mass. Sleeping and feeling tired occurred a lot for my Dad most days. Yet he knew what was happening to him and the more than likely outcome. And he also knew that winter would soon arrive. He had become concerned that without the snow fence, th...

I think I was in college when I heard a professor say “Life is hard and people are complex.” That is true especially in our current cultural moment mixed with the Christmas season. Often during Christmas we get focused on and are reminded of the problems we can’t solve. The people we can’t control and the expectations we can’t meet. Truth be told at the heart of our dismay is ourselves. I am the problem that I can't fix. I am the person I can’t seem to control and I am the person setting expectations that others can’t meet.  We say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year but it often does not seem that way. It doesn’t seem that way because of all of the hecktic things happening in our lives. The Christmas season also highlights who is no longer physically present in our lives. It is no small thing then to remember that the Christmas story tells us that God has not forgotten us. God has not given up on us. Instead God has come to be with us! Christmas reminds us of who is f...

The Sunday worship service was coming to a close. The senior minister that I had been serving with stood on the worship stage to give the closing prayer. Before he gave the closing prayer he announced the results of the vote of confidence that had been held on the Sunday prior. He went on to announce that he had not received 75% of the congregational vote and therefore this would be his last Sunday.  There is a long back story as to what brought about this vote of confidence on the minister. Long story short is that there was some kind of a conflict between the senior minister and some long time members of the church. Those members complained to and colluded with some of those serving as an Elder to have a vote of confidence on the senior minister. On the Sunday of the vote attendance was high. People who had not been in attendance for many months rolled out of bed just to cast their vote.  When the senior minister announced it was his last Sunday some people began to get up a...

There are a lot of things to protest in our culture at the moment. We have witnessed protests that desire to lament racism. We have seen protests that yearn for justice for the disenfranchised and poor. In the midst of all of this I have not witnessed a single protest suggesting that less listening needs to happen. “There is too much listening!” is not the cry of any protester. In fact there is a deep desire to be heard. Not just heard but listened to and understood in some manner.  In all my years of doing local church ministry, serving as a chaplain, being a Father or just doing life I have never had anyone complain about having been listened to well. Nobody has ever complained that they felt someone had truly listened to them. Most of us have experienced the opposite. Perhaps there are a few rare occasions that we might recall in our lives when we could say that someone truly listened to us.  More often we feel ignored. We feel like there was a lot of talking yet nobody was...

13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. 14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. 17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him. (Mark 12:13-17)  What are your politics Jesus? That is what these questioners sent by the Pharisees and the Herodians want to know. They trot out a specific and highly contentious political issue in an attempt to trip Jesus up. The Pharisees...