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At two very different kinds of meetings over the past two months, I’ve seen the following video. Perhaps you’ll find it thought-provoking too:

When CNN started its Belief Blog, I was both excited and more than a little skeptical. Religion is an integral part of our world, so it has to be considered when trying to understand world events. I was afraid, however, that CNN’s experiment would be short-lived. That’s because it’s often difficult to strike the right balance when it comes to this subject. Commentators either don’t take it seriously enough or tip over into what one of my colleagues describes as the “wacky-wacky,” paying too much attention to those on the fringe.

Well, the CNN Belief Blog has, in fact, survived and recently celebrated its first anniversary (after 1,840 posts and 452,603 comments). Here’s a list of ten things that its contributors have learned over the past year:

1. Every big news story has a faith angle.

2. Atheists are the most fervent commenters on matters religious.

3. People are still intensely curious about the Bible, its meaning and its origins.

4. Most Americans are religiously illiterate.

5. It’s impossible to understand much of the news without knowing something about religion.

6. Regardless of where they fit on the spectrum, people want others to understand what they believe.

7. Americans still have an uneasy relationship with Islam.

8. God may not prevent natural disasters, but religion is always a big part of the response.

9. Apocalyptic movements come and go.

10. Most Americans don’t know that President Barack Obama is a Christian.

You can read the whole article – with more details about this list – here.

The Rev. Neil Alan Willard’s Resurgent Church Presentation:
“Making the Connection Between Sunday and Monday”

A few years ago, I attended a business ethics lecture at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. I have to confess that I didn’t go to this event because of any particular interest in the subject. I only went there because I wanted to learn more about the world inhabited by so many of the people in the pews at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Edina. I wanted to learn a little of the grammar that people here use to talk about things not only Monday through Friday but the whole week, including Sunday.

I even created an opportunity for others to join me on this adventure. “On the Road with the Rector” became the title of an ongoing invitation for members and friends of St. Stephen’s to attend some of the lectures or discussions or presentations that I wanted to attend in the Twin Cities for my own personal growth. Sharing those interests with the congregation has had a two-fold benefit. On the one hand, it’s like adding a program to the life of our church at no extra cost. On the other hand, even if very few people accept the invitation, the rest of the congregation gets to learn about some of the things that interest me.

So three or four members of St. Stephen’s met me at the Carlson School of Management to hear David Miller give his business ethics lecture. Miller is the author of God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement and currently serves as  the Director of the Princeton University Faith and Work Initiative. He spent 16 years in senior executive positions in international business and finance before receiving an M.Div. and a Ph.D. in ethics from Princeton Theological Seminary. Miller’s signature course is “Business Ethics: Succeeding without Selling Your Soul.” Continue reading →

Several weeks ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to watch The King’s Speech at the wonderfully retro Edina Cinema, which is just a few blocks down the street from St. Stephen’s Church. Both of us loved this story, and – given the fact that there was sustained applause afterwards – so did everyone else in the theater. I honestly don’t remember the last time that happened at the end of a movie.

Later I ran across a great article that connects what lies at the heart of that movie – the struggle of King George VI to find his voice – with the art of preaching. It occurred to me that wrestling with the fear of public speaking was important not only in my training as a priest but also in my wife’s training as a lawyer. Scribes and Pharisees, if you will, both believe that words mean things and that words have the power to change lives and to shape the world around us.

The article, “Voice Lessons,” was written by William Willimon, the former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University who is currently Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. Here’s an excerpt:

The King’s Speech reminded me what a high vocation it is to enable others to find their voice in service to a God who uses our weakness to bring God’s gospel to speech. I preach today as the recipient of Lionel Logue-like instruction. One spring afternoon at Yale Divinity School I confessed to my teacher, Bill Muehl, that I was self-conscious about my thick southern accent, which everyone in New Haven seemed compelled to note and ridicule. “You can make good money in Texas with that accent,” Muehl assured me.

When I told him I had no intention of preaching in Texas, Muehl said, “Pity,” and then handed me a stack of reel-to-reel tapes. “Listen to these,” was his only instruction, “they are some of the greatest preachers of our time.”

I took the tapes back to my dorm room and spent the rest of the day listening to sermons by Harry Emerson Fosdick, William Sloane Coffin and Halford Luccock. Immediately I noted that none of these great preachers possessed a great voice – all of them had odd speech quirks and vocal weaknesses. I got the point: as in the Bible, God tends to call the “wrong” people, without a surfeit of gifts, to do God’s work.

You can read the whole article here.

While attending the 153rd Annual Convention of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, I ran across – idiomatically, of course – a Tiffany stained glass window that was commissioned in 1892 and now has a home near the main entrance of the historic Union Depot in the City of Duluth. It’s called “Minnehaha” and includes this detail, which I thought might be of interest to the readers of Laughing Water (and, yes, I’m aware of the mistranslation):

On the far right of the menu above the picture of Minnehaha Creek appears the new “Comments Policy” for this blog. Yes, that means that most of the time you’ll be able to make comments on posts within the guidelines described there, including a requirement to use your first and last real names.

Please “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” them before you comment.