You Are A Good Egg (Willy Wonka Theology) By Beth Demme Remember Veruca Salt? The spoiled brat who got to tour Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory? Her tour ends in the Golden Egg Room. She runs all over the room, having a fit and making a mess because Wonka won’t sell her father a Golden Goose. Her tirade ends when she …
Finding Dory and Me, Sometimes I Forget God Is Waiting
By Beth Demme I don’t think Finding Dory was intended to teach me something about God, but as sometimes happens, it did anyway. I realize this admission reveals how unsophisticated I truly am, but if we’ve known each other for more than a minute this won’t be new information. Finding Dory reminded me that sometimes I go off on my …
Can I Be Overwhelmed With Joy?
I’ve had an epiphany! Actually, we’re all having another Epiphany. It’s more than a sudden inspiration; it’s a season on the church calendar. It’s the time of year we celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men. The Wise Men were astrologers. They were star and sky readers. A star led the Wise Men to Jesus, but if you read the …
Advent Is A Season to Celebrate Waiting
By Beth Demme It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas / Everywhere you go / Take a look in the Five and Ten / Glistening once again / With candy canes and silver lanes aglow. When it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Advent has arrived! We could sing “it’s beginning to look a lot like Advent,” but …
The Thanksgiving Everything Changed
By Beth Demme It was just before Thanksgiving 2002. My husband and I followed the pediatrician down the hall, our footsteps echoing off the undecorated walls and hard floors. We were inside a maternity/pediatric hospital in a small coal-mining town in southwest Russia. The doctor led us to a bright room, with a big window, three cribs and one precious …
How to Find True Joy
By Beth Demme What do you know about gold? My knowledge of gold is mainly this: it makes pretty jewelry, like the wedding ring I’ve worn for nearly twenty years. It turns out there’s a lot more to gold than its beauty. Gold starts as a rock in the ground. It gets mined —cut— out of the ground. Picture bulldozers …
How to Write a Spiritual Autobiography
How to Write a Spiritual Autobiography By Beth Demme A Spiritual Autobiography is the story of your own life and how God has been present in it. It can include your journey in, and out of, organized religion and all things spiritual. Writing your Spiritual Autobiography is an opportunity to identify specific experiences of God and to reflect on how …
The Notice the Beauty Challenge
By Beth Demme I tend to be a task-oriented person. I like to have a plan for each day or at least a list of things I hope to accomplish. For some people, the perfect Saturday involves waking up late and then “going with the flow.” To me, that sounds like the worst Saturday ever. Days like that feel wasted to …