The Flatpicking Pilgrim's Progress

Since America is  still sorting out the end of yesterday's tribal war, with one group acting like they won the Iron Bowl and the other looking for an immigration application to Canada, maybe it would be better to tell a story about something else. A church vote and a lesson in winning and losing. Support the show

I wish everyone could know, way early on, that they’d have to make that journey one day. That it might be a long way, and your transportation limited, and time running out. I guess then I might have lived some things a little differently. It was so easy when time seemed to stretch out forever to think it didn’t matter as much as it actually did, even then. That so much of the virtual foolishness o...

I spent Labor Day relaxing a bad board on my deck and I'm pulling nails. You know, nails go in easier than they come back out.   Eventually, a board gets so bad you have to do something, and there you are, having to repair, pull ‘em out, and sometimes, when all else fails, just drive the dang thing down into the board, forever there to mock you. Support the show

“ONE MOMENT I WAS a regular person with regular problems. And the next, I was someone with cancer. Before my mind could apprehend it, it was there—swelling to take up every space my imagination could touch. A new and unwanted reality. There was a before, and now there was an after. “ Support the show

Cryptically, Tom said in his last words before dying, that he had never harmed a hair on that girl’s head.  So which was it? Here is the essence of great murder mystery—passion, jealousy and betrayal, intrigue,  and rivalry of others.  Support the show

When we are wringing our hands, troubled in mind, struggling with hope and anxious to the gills, I can pick up my mandolin our guitar at home, play a tune, and feel something lift out of the room. Wherever that sound came from (and as a man of faith, I think I know), it says, “There’s still something unexpectedly beautiful up ahead. Go on, and don’t give up.” Support the show

It wasn’t a perfect world, and a lot of divisions and pain were yet to come. But they had one shining moment, too young to even understand, when they poured onto those bloody beaches, the fate of the Western World on those shoulders.  Support the show

In today's podcast I review Jonathan Haidt's important book on the impact of social media and phones on our children.  A powerfully important book and research to know about. Children are learning socially, experimentally, all the time. He is hopeful that it is not yet too late. His chapters are very readable and accessible. He places summaries at the end of each section so that his argu...

“The second before the sun went out, we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us. We no sooner saw it than it was upon us, like thunder. It roared up the valley. It slammed our hill and knocked us out. It was the monstrous swift shadow cone of the moon.”  Annie Dillard Support the show

They stood at a distance      while the women cried, brokenhearted, devastated, sobbing,     and his mother beyond soothing. Support the show

Poetic reflection. When your hopes are dead and you're going to the tomb with an impossible stone to move, what will you do? Support the show

On a trip to Israel in 2010 I ended up voluntarily being locked in to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of the crucifixion. As the crowds left and a handful of vigil-sitters and contemplators stayed behind, this happened. Support the show

Excerpt from SHADOW PRAYERS. A poetic reflection on the bewildering sentence in the Apostles' Creed that says, "He descended into hell."  Support the show

There are two charcoal fires mentioned in the gospel narrative of Holy Week. One is where people were warming their hands and identified Peter as one of the disciples. The other was on the shores of Galilee.  Support the show

A poem about Tennebrae,f the observance of the deathly silence between crucifixion and Easter Sunday Support the show

Three poems about the pivotal day in the Christian story, full of every human failure and treachery and the heroic and inexplicable faithfulness of Jesus, immovable as all around him collapsed. All poems by Gary Furr. "Good Friday" "Pontius Pilate" "The Crucifixion" Support the show

The terrible silences of holy week give spaces for something radically new.. But  we anre afraid, so afraid, that we are going to be alone, that we are forsaken, that there is only absence and death and decay.  We talk about presence, but truthfully, we do almost everything we can to keep it out of our awareness.   We may see things we don’t want to see and have to do something about it. Support t...

A look at the last week of Jesus of Nazareth's life on earth offers a question for us all. When the end is near, how should I live?  What would I do differently? Support the show

It is uniquely American to race past hard times and on to the future. As we still grapple with the upheavals of our society wrought by the pandemic, we crave normality without having to do the hard work of real understanding. As we enter Holy Week, my reflections come from the book I wrote in 2022, SHADOW PRAYERS, reflecting on a final year of full-time ministry amid the crises of 2020 and 21, as...

The question isn't how do we connect spiritual life and healing: it's how did they ever get separated in the first place. At a national conference for caseworkers, I shared six sentences for healing professionals. They're actually valuable for everyone as we seek to be well and bring health to others. Support the show

It's worth it to look back when you know how. In this story from the fictional town of Mount Nebo, a young man finds himself returning to the place he said he'd never go, to live among people who were strangers in more ways than one. And the beginning of a journey that would lead him in places he did not yet understand. It's a journey we are all on. Support the show

The odd coincidence of Lent on Valetine’s day leads to a reflection on the tension between letting go and taking up in this episode. A reading from my book, Poems, Prayers and Unfinished Promises.   Support the show

Endless forgiveness or endless revenge?  Reflecting on the bewildering teaching of Jesus from the gospel of Matthew. Support the show

Listen to the Lenten reflections from the Audiobook of Shadow Prayers: Reflections From a Pandemic Year. As the pandemic began its grim spread across the world, a collective isolation pulled humanity and its institutions into a crisis of meaning. Lent was a fitting companion as life as we knew it eroded. Support the show

Shadow Prayers Reflections from a Pandemic Year Written in 2021, Shadow Prayers is a Memoir of a Pastor's final year of ministry, guiding a congregation through the toxic time of pandemic, political division and racial divide. Written copies available for order. https://garyfurr.me/writings/ “Through his psalm-like collection of writings, he captures the melancholy and mourning of the year of...