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a sermon by Lia Scholl John 3:8 in the New Revised Standard Version reads like this: The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. As many of you know who speak different languages or have studied ancient languages it’s hard often to find a good translation—and as hard as this one tries—this translation is incomplete. The word that is translated as wind is pneuma in Koine Greek. Can you say it with me? Pneuma. You hear a word from our own language in that? Maybe you hearRead More →

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In: Sex Work, Writing

My friend Meg Vallee and I did a thing at Wild Goose 2019. Here’s what we said. Meg speaks:  So, hi to everyone who chose to join us after lunch, when you really want to nap. Thank you! Welcome to Underground Economies, Radical Politics, and Unconventional Loves. When Lia and I started talking about doing this, we didn’t want to do a typical “you should love and respect sex workers” sort of thing. We think you’re probably already there, right? Instead, we wanted to break down the things we see in sex worker life–the life skills, the advocacy, the resilience, and the community, and seeRead More →

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In: Relationships, Sermon

A sermon on John 8: 1-11. We have been learning about forgiveness… We learned why we should forgive—because resentment is like eating rat poison and hoping the rat will die. And we forgive because we are commanded by God to do so, that in doing so we build a world of forgiveness. And the best reason to forgive is that we, ourselves, need forgiveness. We learned how to forgive (according to The Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mpho Tutu): tell the story, name the hurt, grant forgiveness, and release or renew the relationship. We also learned about creating a world of forgiveness, and thatRead More →

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In: Love, Sermon

A sermon based on Hosea 11. A friend asked in a coffee shop recently: How do you reconcile the idea of a loving God with all that happens in the world? It’s the oldest question in the world. And when we look at the stark horror of what has happened this week in Paris, in Beirut, in southern Japan, in the Bosso district of Niger, and in Baghdad It’s hard to start anyplace but disbelief and sorrow. How can we reconcile the idea of a loving God with all that has happened in the world? This is the question, I believe, that the book ofRead More →

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A sermon based on 1 Kings 18. I wonder if you all know the composer, Arvo Pärt. He was born in Estonia in 1935. He is a rather prolific composer, which includes choral pieces and orchestral pieces. My favorite is a piece called Spiegel im Spiegel, or Mirror in Mirror, which was written for a piano and violin. In a recent Guardian article Gunter Atteln said, “In order to understand Pärt, one needs to know that he is a religious person. You don’t need to be religious to feel his music, just as you don’t need to be religious to feel the music of Bach.”Read More →