Preachers Everywhere

In preparing yesterday's sermon on Luke 11:1-13 and engaging in some blog conversations, I discovered that many other friends and bloggers also preached on the same morning, a higher number of us than usual. (After my sermon, given 3 times, the toughest critic in Iowa City offered very affirming comments, but then sighed, "I suppose I can't have everything I want...I wanted to hear a sermon on the Colossians reading instead.")

It was odd enough that John and I preached on the same text in different cities! But good friends Lauren, Janey, Elizabeth, Laurel and Court preached too, I hear -- and rumor has it that Joe and Barb did, too.

Anyone else?

Faith and Order

We're leaving in the morning for the Faith and Order Conference on the campus of Oberlin College, where we'll meet up with our former professor, Ellen, and former bishop, Chris. Five days of listening to papers sounds a bit long, but there's a "theological film festival" scheduled for the evenings which might be fun...although the movies start at 9:00 p.m. Yawn...

Truck Blessings

As a new campus minister, I'm spending about six hours each week on Interstate 80, where countless throngs of truck drivers pass by at alarming speeds. In the business section of our local paper, an article on truckers' chronic unhealthiness caught my eye, and that same day, more than one truck veered onto the shoulder and then back to the road. I decided that I could either growl and sigh at the truckers, or start blessing them. So, I'm now blessing trucks. It's like pet blessings in that your subjects don't keep still, sometimes are muddy, and can be very noisy.

This week I've blessed FedEx, U Haul, Office Max, Crocs (yes, the holy or holey shoes)and Allied trucks, plus trucks carrying horses and fire hydrants.