Reviews - Gathering In Light

2022 Fandoms

I’m someone who loves being a fan and loves fandom. If you know me, you know that when I get into something, I am really into it. I love sharing my love with others. I don’t typically do a review on my fandoms over the year but thought

Blog Entries

Activities For New Year’s Eve

When we had the idea of throwing a small gathering at our house for New Year’s Eve, we did the initial planning around food and drinks, the traditional (for us) stuff: pork, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, etc. But not one to want to do just the expected things, I talked

Living Well

Are You Ready to Do Your Annual Review? Here Are Some Tips and Resources

As we round out the end of 2019 and the last of this decade, there’s no better time than now to reflect on the past and think about goals and priorities you want to have for the coming year(s). When I think about the connection between work and

Blog Entries

2019 – Year in Photos

Photo Descriptions From Left to Right, Top to Bottom 1. Living in Greensboro means that we are closer to family and we get to see cousins a lot more. This year we got to celebrate Halloween with my sister Steffanie’s family. 2. Went to Philadelphia a couple times this

Reviews

‘I Am Continually With You’ : A Review of L. Callid Keefe-Perry’s “Way to Water: A Theopoetics Primer”

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js Church services are poetry from beginning to end; they just are poetry. …Religion is serious poetry — which is not to say religion cannot be light- hearted. But at its highest it turns important; and important involvement with language, use of language for significant

Blog Entries

Books I Loved Reading In 2014

I love books and I love to read. This past year I started keeping a little better track of the books I read using a simple reading log at the back of one of my notebooks. This makes it a lot easier to not only remember the books I read,

Books Review

Review: Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling and Community by Leah Kostamo

If he wantonly crushes ants for the fun of it, odds are he won’t be too concerned about the suffering and demise of larger species, including, studies have show, his own. – Leah Kostamo I just finished the book “Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling and Community,” published by Cascade

Featured

OMG! A film on GMOs: Review of “GMO OMG”

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/71035892 w=550&h=309] Monday evening, I had the opportunity to watch Jeremy Seifert’s new film GMO OMG. Jeremy and his family hold a special place in my heart because of our friendship that developed while he and I were in school together

DIY

The Moleskine of calendars @NeuYear (Review and 40% Discount)

I am a big fan of Moleskine – and Moleskine-like – notebooks. High-quality “analog” ways of note-taking, planning and sketching are where it is at for me. So you can imagine my delight when I learned about Jesse Philips NeuYear Calendars. After receiving mine for review I can say it truly is

Reviews

Review: All Labor Has Dignity – Martin Luther King, Jr.

The book, All Labor Has Dignity,” is a collection of Martin Luther King, Jr’s speeches edited by Michael Honey, a scholar of labor and African-American history. There are a number of speeches/sermons that have never been put into print before that Honey was able to track down and

Discernment

Practicing Discernment Together as a Church

About a month ago we began a Wednesday evening meeting at Camas Friends (the Quaker meeting I pastor). The goal of these meetings are to build our friendships with each other (so we eat together before the class begins), as well as add to our being a learning community. The

The Political

GMO OMG! Jeremy Seifert’s New Sizzle Real

My friend Jeremy Seifert, the guy behind the popular documentary Dive!, which I have reviewed here in the past, is beginning work on a new documentary about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). I am really excited about the new project and have posted it a few times in various places, but

Blog Entries

New Missiology Books October 2010

As a doctoral student in missiology I like to keep up on the new things getting published on the subject. Here are a few new books that are out that have caught my attention. ((Books include referral code links to Powell’s Books an Independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon.)) Summaries

Blog Entries

Small Group Discussion Guide for “The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction”

Over the course of the summer a small group at Camas Friends Church worked through Ben Pink Dandelion’s “The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction.” The book is honestly a little deceiving. It is short, but the font is also small and it is packed full with tons of information.

Blog Entries

How Krista Tippett is Rocking My World

One of the things that has been really inspiring me lately is Krista Tippett’s radio/podcast program “Being,” which as of a month ago was known more widely as “Speaking of Faith.” The show interviews a variety of people from various faiths and perspectives who are doing some really

Blog Entries

Joan Chittister’s “The Liturgical Year”

I picked up a copy of Joan Chittister’s new book “The Liturgical Year” the other day at Powells. ((affiliate links connected to powell’s online bookstore)) Chittister, a long-time nun, writes in this book a theological and practical explanation of the liturgical calendar. I’m pretty excited about this

Church in Mission

Creating Liberated Spaces: Some Thoughts

Back in February, and on the dawn of Transfiguration Sunday, about 30 (?) folks piled into a Southeastern Portland home to share in a conversation being facilitated by two out of towners Eliacin Rosario-Cruz (Seattle) and Mark Van Steenwyk (Minnesota). The crowd was made up of a number of men and

Reviews

Iconocast Podcast

I’ve been really enjoying the first two episodes of the Iconocast and thought I’d share the link here for those of you interested in listening in. The podcast is put together by some of the fine folks behind the Jesus Manifesto site as well as Jarrod McKenna of

Reviews

Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices (Pre-Order Our New Book!)

As many of you know I have been on an editorial board of young Quakers for that past couple years working on a book that collects writings from Quakers around the world. The book was edited by Angelina Conti, Cara Curtis, Harriet Hart, Sarah Katreen Hoggatt, Evelyn Jadin, John Epur

Reviews

Missions by the Spirit by Ron Stansell (Quaker Missions)

Quaker Missiologist Ron Stansell has a new book coming out this month from Barclay Press called Missions By the Spirit. My review of the book is posted there if you have interest in getting a brief overview. I recommend the book to all of you who are interested in missions

The Theological

The Power (and Difficulty) of Forgiveness

Of the many things to be considered today the thing that stands out to me as I sit down to write this is the film we watched this evening called “The Power of Forgiveness.” Four of us from our meeting traveled to St. Luke’s Episcopal in downtown Vancouver to

The Cultural

Favorite Music of 2009

Here’s a list of my favorite, or at least most listened to, albums from this past year. Elvis Perkins In Dearland Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s self-titled, second album arrived this year and it has been in constant rotation on the record player since it’s arrived. It is

Blog Entries

Freedom Friends Church Faith and Practice

Freedom Friends Church in Salem Oregon is currently an independent meeting that has recently written their own Faith and Practice. A number of Friends, Monthly Meetings and Yearly Meetings, have been interested in reading about this unique meeting and some of the practices they espouse. I have done a decent

Blog Entries

Check Out The Kingdom Experiment (Book Review)

I recently subscribed to the new magazine Generate, which I highly recommend for all of you in church ministry and thinking about alternative, ’emerging’ ways of ministry. It is a great magazine (first one just came out this fall). I read through the whole thing in an evening I enjoyed

Green

Food, Inc. Documentary on Where Our Food Comes From (Review)

The tag line for FOOD, inc. is “You’ll never look at your dinner the same way again,” and well, they’re right. This for some of you may be the very reason why you decide in advance to not watch it, or to not read the rest of this