We are six weeks out from what may be the most consequential election of our lifetime, and the presidential race remains a statistical tie. The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, is a narcissistic charlatan who will say anything to grab the spotlight and fire up his base. He had never held elected office before being elected…
Author: jnickell5
The Youth Vote
In 1980, I voted for John Anderson in my first presidential election. I was a registered Democrat and felt that Jimmy Carter was an honorable man but an ineffective president. Anderson, a liberal Republican running as an Independent, offered a refreshing choice. Forty-four years later, I still feel good about that vote. Young people should…
A New Reformation
With the exodus of many of its most conservative congregations, the United Methodist Church (UMC) has now fractured over the issue of LGBTQ+ inclusion, as did mainline Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches before them. The UMC fracture, however, occurred in reverse order: whereas conservative congregations departed the other denominations when they voted to ordain gays…
Balance
In a recent podcast interview, the host asked me how I nurture my own spirituality, and I answered that I do that by seeking balance. A few weeks later, my spiritual director suggested that I work on finding balance in my life, which has pushed and pulled me in many different directions this year. Many…
Thin Places
Death has seemed very present lately. We are in the season for dying things, as much of nature goes dormant for winter. Annual plants die completely, while perennials die back. Trees go out in a blaze of color before their leaves fall. Animals tuck themselves in to hibernate as the winter months approach. For ancient…
Reparations
My first house, a 1927 bungalow oozing charm, cost $43,000 in 1990. The mortgage interest rate was 9.5% and I had very little money to put down, but I as a first-time home buyer, I could finance the closing costs through an FHA loan. I sold that house seven year later for $71,000, and the…
Rooted and Rising
In 2007, Paul Hawken published a book called Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. The book documents grassroots activism around the world, ranging from NGOs to billionaire philanthropists to local, individual efforts. The movement is enormous, but so widely dispersed that it…
Today’s Samaritans
Most of us think of Samaritans favorably. We know that word as part of the phrase “good Samaritan, ” as in laws that offer legal protection to people who have rendered aid to someone in trouble. The idea, of course, is from the parable in Luke 10:30-37, in which a man is robbed, beaten, and…
Sex and the Bible
Issues of religion and sexuality are as potent as ever. The overturning of abortion rights, church division over LGBTQ rights, and the morality of sexual relations outside of marriage turn on questions of right and wrong, which for Christians are grounded in scripture. Yet no area requires that we contextualize biblical guidance more than sexuality…
Broken
Like most Americans, I was heartbroken over the mass shooting in Texas that killed innocent children at school. I was heartbroken to learn that the shooter was just 18 years old, the same age as the shooter who killed 10 black people at a grocery store in Buffalo just ten days earlier. But what breaks…