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Toxic: The Poison of Orthodoxy (Jas. 2:14-26)

When my twin brother and I were very young, we found some candy in our parent’s bedroom.  There wasn’t a lot of it, but what was there, we ate.  Unfortunately, we got caught.  Our mom walked in on our little candy-snacking.  Even more unfortunately, the candy turned out not to be candy.  To everyone’s shock, my brother and I had just gorged on my mother’s birth control pills.  She called the doctor and we were rushed to the hospital.  Mom was terrified that we might have just poisoned ourselves.  Thankfully, everything eventually worked out.  But it was a toxic scare.  And, since that incident, I have been unable to get pregnant.Read More »Toxic: The Poison of Orthodoxy (Jas. 2:14-26)

Masquerade: Missing the Story for the Semicolons

The musical “The Phantom of the Opera” tells the story of Christine, a former orphan who is given the opportunity to sing in the Paris Opera.  Two men fall in love with Christine.  One is Raoul, the opera’s patron and a childhood friend of Christine’s.  The other, a masked menace called the Phantom, has long adored Christine and even keeps a life-sized doll resembling Christine in his secret lair beneath the Opera House.  Act 2 of “The Phantom of the Opera” begins with a masquerade ball at which the Phantom appears.  The Phantom wears a mask to hide his hideously disfigured face.  But all of the other guests also wear masks.  As they dance, they sing a song called “Masquerade.”  Here are some of the lines: “Maquerade! Paper faces on parade.  Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you.  Masquerade! You can fool any friend who ever knew you.”  The masks allow each guest to play a role.  They can pretend to be someone they are not.  They can hide from others who they truly are.  Using the masks, they can “fool any friend who ever knew you.”Read More »Masquerade: Missing the Story for the Semicolons

Masquerade: Moving from Some to All

I’ve performed a couple of dozen wedding ceremonies.  Almost without exception, what causes some of the greatest anxiety for the couple is the wedding vow.  Couples take great care to choose the right vows or write the perfect vows.  And they are often concerned that they’ll mess the vows up.  There are few times in our lives when we put as much thought into a few words as we do at a wedding.Read More »Masquerade: Moving from Some to All