Welcome from
Eric O. Ledermann
Hey! Thanks for stopping by. Pour yourself a cup o' jo, take a load off your feet, and check out what's here. You are looking at my ramblings about issues of faith, life and culture—they are my own and are not necessarily shared by those with whom I work, live or otherwise engage.
Heck, a week from now I may not even agree with what I write here! The Spirit of God is always moving; always shaping and reshaping, transforming and re-forming, each of us according to God's hope and vision for humanity. I hope we may be able to listen, pay attention, and respond faithfully. To steal a phrase from our UCC sisters and brothers: "God is still speaking."
Feel free to share your comments and engage in any conversation that may be happening here, but just know that I do reserve the right to delete any spam or anything I deem inappropriate or offensive. I look forward to dialoguing with anyone who cares to dialogue!
Peace and blessings,
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Thank you to everyone who helped me shape my business card design. It is so much better than I could have imagined. The “winning” design, by a rather large margin, was Option B:
The scores were, out of 5:
Option A - 2.56 Option B - 4.29 Option C - 3.83 Option D - 2.61
There were a lot of suggestions and comments as well, so the final design may get tweaked a bit, but for the most part it will be what you see here.
It may seem silly to spend so much time on a simple thing like a business card—and honestly, I was just having some fun with this. But I think people do underestimate the power of tone, esthetics, and atmosphere. So much of language in any culture is expressed non-verbally. How a room is organized or decorated, how someone is dressed, [...]
Tomorrow is the day we give thanks—as though we don’t have to give thanks any other day. Tomorrow, our entire nation gathers with family and friends to feast and fellowship—except for those who do not have jobs, who are living on the streets, who have no family, or are otherwise struggling with personal issues they cannot shake so no one really wants to be around them. Tomorrow, we celebrate the amazing voyage of the pious Pilgrims who left the safety of their mother land in order to live in religious and political freedom—that is, until they forced their way of life on others who came, and even claimed some of them witches when these others would not conform to the lifestyle and religious practices of the majority so they drowned them, stretched them, and did all sorts of other horrid things in the name of “religious freedom” and Christ. Yes, [...]
In Matthew 19, a young man approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to have eternal life (see also Mark 10 and Luke 18). Jesus responds with a list of some of Moses’ commandments from Exodus and Deuteronomy. But the young man persists and tells Jesus he has done all that, and then asks what else he must do. Jesus responds with this:
21Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.� (NRSV)
Understandably, in my mind, the man walks away “grieving� according to the NRSV, “for he had many possessions.� Jesus did not say he had to sell everything. Jesus did not even say he had to sell everything in order to “have eternal life.� [...]
Matthew 13 is all about the parable: the story to tell the story. Matthew has Jesus going through a series of parables about responses to faith and how faith can so easily wilt. He mentions the presence of evil and how difficult it is to sometimes differentiate from truth. Then at verses 31-33 and 44-52 Jesus goes into a number of images as he tries to help his disciples understand the meaning of the “kingdom of heaven�: mustard seed, yeast, treasure, pearls, and a fishing net.
Some of these images are familiar and comforting. The mustard is small, but that’s all it takes to become fruitful. The yeast helps the bread to grow and become light and tasty—there’s nothing more yummy and comforting than fresh baked bread still warm from the oven. While I’m not into pearls, per se, I can see how Jesus might want his disciples to [...]
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