james on Singing

Praise to God, immortal praise. For the love that crowns our days; Bounteous Source of every joy. Let your praise our tongues employ. All to you, our God, we owe, Source whence all our blessings fl...

In rural Msinga, a municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, the highlight of Christmas Day festivities is when men, newly returned home from work in the big cities, gather to sing a...

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neig...

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it...

Praise to God, eternal praise, For the love that crowns our days; Abundant Source of every joy. Let your praise our tongues employ. All to you, our God, we owe, Source whence all our blessings flow...

Every good gift that we have had from the cradle up has come from God. If a man just stops to think what he has to praise God for, he will find there is enough to keep him singing praises for a week.

In the intro sequence of the beloved children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , the first interior shot does not show the host. Instead, in the beat before Fred Rogers appears on the screen si...

preaching commentary The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, th...

What does it look like to incarnate the gospel in our lives? Dawn Husnick, whom Scot McKnight describes as having had some “tough years with alcohol, failed personal relationships, and depression, fou...

Easter Sunday dawned with Martin [Luther King] in jail. . . . We planned a march from New Pilgrim Baptist Church to the city jail for the afternoon of Easter Sunday. . . . By the time church ended som...

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...

Only he who cries out for the persecuted Jews can sing Gregorian chants.

Gracious God, the noise of this world drowns out the beauty of your voice. You invite us to listen, but we deny you time and space. Forgive us for ignoring you. Create in us the desire to listen to yo...

The psalmist describes the experience of “keeping silent” about sin as a kind of disintegration. His bones turn to powder (Ps. 32:3). His energy dissipates, “the very pith of my body decomposed as if ...

If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

A man who was well-to-do enjoyed buying his father unusual and exotic presents for Christmas.… But one particular Christmas this man found a gift for his father that was truly unique: a talking bird t...

I cried when I was born and every day shows why.

The Christian gospel is rooted in language: God spoke a creation into being; our Savior was the Word made flesh. The poet is the person who uses words not primarily to convey information but to make a...

Father God, you come to us in the everyday. You give us your Word and your Spirit that we might hear your voice, and follow your ways. We confess that we have neglected your words to us and pretended ...

Father God, you come to us in the everyday. You give us your Word and your Spirit that we might hear your voice, and follow your ways. We confess that we have neglected your words to us and pretended ...

When prayer consists of the same spoken sentences on every occasion, naturally we wonder at the value of the practice. If our prayers bore us, do they also bore God? Does God really need to hear me sa...

O Great Spirit, whose breath gives life to the world, and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze; We need your strength and wisdom. Cause us to walk in beauty. Give us the eyes ever to behold the red...

Gracious God, you have called us to be light in a dark world, and we have remained hidden. Thinking of ourselves first, we have withheld courage and compassion. Merciful God, hear our confessions and ...

One elderly monk in his community used to show his displeasure with other monks in a highly creative way. As you may know, most monastic communities chant the psalms several times a day together in ch...

Pastor: O Spirit of God, help my infirmities. When I am pressed down because of my sin, perplexed and not knowing what to do, help me. All: When you see that I desire evil things, delighting in sinf...

Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to com...

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed ...

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...