Today is Reign of Christ Sunday, also known as Christ the King Sunday.  Calling this Sunday “Reign of Christ” makes a little more sense in our context because in this country, with the form of government we have (or aspire to have) we don’t talk about kings that much (unless we’re saying we want no kings as our official rulers).    One weakness in having a king as the head of a government is that sometimes kings think they don’t have to answer to anybody.  That’s a problem when they’re...

Can you tell that the end is near?  The end of the government shutdown—good, that’s a start.  The end of the calendar year in about 7 more weeks.    I wish we could say we’ve seen the end of people living irresponsibly, as we heard about in the second letter to the Thessalonians, along with the command “anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”  So here’s your public service announcement for today: Biblical warnings about idleness—unwilling to work—were about the RICH, not the POOR, meaning...

Have you heard of death doulas?  You may have heard of doulas—it’s the Greek word for slave or servant—though in our culture we use the term doula to refer to people accompanying a birth of a child.  A doula helps as an advocate for the mother-to-be, to assist her through the process of labor and the first stages of parenthood.  As a doula accompanies a birth, a death doula accompanies a person who is dying, assisting them through the end stages of their life.    I saw a quote from a death...