good and evil

November 10, 2024

After the election, what next?

Regardless of how you voted Tuesday, and no matter how energetically we may disagree with each other about the issues at stake in the election, I believe there are at least two things about which we can agree. First, we still need to live with our neighbors in a healthy relationship, no matter how they Continue reading

Ruminations

Antaeus, community, conflict between God and Satan, cosmic forces, creative engagement, divisiveness, dualism, feeling powerless, good and evil, healthy relationships, Hercules, leaving the country, listening to those who disagree, living in harmony, love your enemies, national integrity, new creation, paradise restored, political strife, post-election opportunity, post-election stress disorder, post-election wisdom, presidential election, reconciliation, right and wrong, Trump’s election, unmet expectations
July 14, 2024

A plumb line

“Then the Lord said, ‘See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people’ (Amos 7:8). The plumb line God set in ancient Israel (Amos 7:7-15) – the reference point or standard that would reveal the values around which their life had been built – revealed a nation skewed so far out Continue reading

Ruminations

Adrienne LaFrance, Amos, another way to live, christianity, Einstein, eternal life, faith, God, good and evil, Jesus, law, law of life, law of love, political structures, social structures, standard of values, Ten Commandments, The New Anarchy
June 10, 2024

Have you eaten from the tree?

Picture the parent, arms akimbo, confronting the young child. “Have you been eating chocolate?” The child, face covered with chocolate and a “Who, me?” expression, answers, “No, not me!” Now intensify that scene several hundred times, and imagine God calling to Adam in the garden, “Where are you?” and Adam, knowing he’d been caught, trying Continue reading

Ruminations

Adam’s guilt, disobedience, expulsion from paradise, garden of Eden, good and bad, good and evil, hardship, if your eye is healthy, if your eye is single, integrity, light and dark, suffering, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, why bad things happen
March 23, 2024

Palm Sunday: The Heart’s Ladder

Palm Sunday worship services traditionally begin with a reading from Mark’s gospel. It’s the description of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of his final week, the reading in which the crowd shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mark 1:9-10). Because the scriptures are a living Continue reading

Ruminations

abundant life, full life, Going to Jerusalem, good and evil, harmony of opposites, Holy Week, Isaac the Syrian, light and dark, Palm Sunday, reconciliation, reconciling love, reconciling opposites, self-examination, whole life
November 19, 2023

God in the gains and losses

Some scriptures to me are like a sweet dessert: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15); “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, as sure as the sunrise” (Lam. 3:22-23); “Teach Continue reading

Ruminations

betrayal, difficult scriptures, do the right thing, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, failure, for everything there is a season, good and evil, life’s unfairness, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, outer darkness, overcoming, parable of the talents, suffering, talents, the best-laid schemes
July 23, 2023

The pace of nature

What do you do when you’re unable to make sense of life – when its pieces lie before you like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with no box-top picture to help you assemble them? Are there pieces, you may wonder, that were never meant to be part of the picture you’re working on? Is there Continue reading

Ruminations

Arlen Jenkins, God’s judgment, good and bad, good and evil, light and dark, Neil Kattermann, patience, puzzles, Ralph Waldo Emerson, redemption, theodicy, vacation, weeds and wheat, why bad things happen, why?
April 10, 2022

The way to life

We don’t observe the season of Lent to seek redemption from our broken nature; that’s already been accomplished. And we don’t observe Lent to practice some stricter rules for Christian life; authentic Christianity is not about following any rules. We observe Lent because we want the experience of being fully alive and fully human.1 We Continue reading

Ruminations

a life of meaning, abundant life, call to discipleship, cost of discipleship, David Brooks, decision, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, discipleship, distresses of choice, eternal life, Follow me, good and evil, humility, integrity, Jerusalem as symbol, Jesus in the wilderness, Lent, love, Mount of Transfiguration, Palm Sunday, peace of Christ, polarities, polarities of God, priorities, take up your cross daily, testing in the wilderness, the peaceable kingdom, to everything a season, values, W.H. Auden, weeds and wheat, wholeness, wilderness of choices

About Me

Rich Neal is, in no particular order, a wordsmith and graphic designer; lover of typography, books, and publishing; photographer; contemplative; saunterer; and a retired and still-active pastor. He claims neither special wisdom nor particularly deep insight into life, only occasional glimpses of what lies behind the veil along the way. He shares them here in the hope of connecting the pieces of life’s puzzle that come to him in the journey and would consider it a gift if sharing them also connected him with others who travel an unmarked path toward the same unknown end.