An unforgettable day. But I was most touched by something his daughter said that night. She told us a little-known fact—that part of his childhood was spent in a children’s home. His family was disconnected by life. She said one of the reasons he loved sports teams so much was that family life had been hard for him. At the park, though, no matter w…

In other words, unity of heart, spirit and love can exist even though we must have differences that will take longer to resolve. We begin with this willingness to know a fellow Christian’s heart and build upon the possibility of fellowship. It does not mean give up our convictions. But we must begin with the hardest and highest call Jesus gave to u…

I want you to consider this: three astrologers came from Persia, without knowing anything about who they were dealing with in Herod. The salvation of the world lay innocently in the arms of his mother, nothing to protect him from the power of the state. His fate depended on these strangers and what they were to make of a dream they had that likely …

Cryptic and mysterious messages begin coming through the unlikeliest of messengers: an elderly woman in a nursing home. Crowds flock to see her, and experts try to determine what causes it. The local ministers are perplexed. Is it the medication? Dementia? Wishful thinking? Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

It was a desperate time. You might even say the worst of times. And the story plainly says that while we were still lost in the tragedy called sin,God showed up, as Forrest Gump once said. Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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, ev…

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. Supp…

“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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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’…

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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 t…

“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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

They stood at a distance while the women cried, brokenhearted, devastated, sobbing, and his mother beyond soothing. Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

A poem about Tennebrae,f the observance of the deathly silence between crucifixion and Easter Sunday Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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 se…

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

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…

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…

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 showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Endless forgiveness or endless revenge? Reflecting on the bewildering teaching of Jesus from the gospel of Matthew. Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Subscriber-only episode The Introduction to the Audiobook 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/…

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…

Subscriber-only episodeAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Subscriber-only episodeAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Subscriber-only episode 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 collectio…

Subscriber-only episode 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 collectio…

Subscriber-only episode 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 collectio…

Subscriber-only episode 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 collectio…

Subscriber-only episode 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 collectio…

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 captur…

Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Subscriber-only episodeAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

God hung the stars brighter than the sun to illuminate the darkness. And sent one life into the world to do the same. If we can comprehend it, understand that life, receive it, we can, said John in his gospel, be the very sons and daughters of God. If not, we’ll just stumble around with our flashlights, trying to find our own pitiful way and cursin…

Subscriber-only episodeAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

Beginning this week, I have additional content available for subscribers only. It only costs three dollars per month to download and access audio books, audio articles, music, and lots more! Unsubscribe anytime you need those three dollars for something else. It kicks off with my chapters from ENCOUNTERING GOD IN THE PRAYERS OF OTHERS. For a sample…

Dr. Howard Thurman (1899 – April 10, 1981) rose from the segregated south of his childhood to become an author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader. He was Dean of Theology and the chapels at Howard University and Boston University. In 1953 Life magazine) rated Thurman among the twelve most important religious leaders in the U…

Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

A prize hog named Brad Pitt and, two drunken troublemakers out for a joyride meet karma head-on. A Christmas story quite unlike any other in the mythical town of Mount Nebo,, where progress goes to slow down. Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr

We could use a good story right now. Here's one about a young preacher in a little country church, a long time ago and a long way from here, in a church without much promise and in need of help. It might be just the story you need today. Support the showAutor: Gary Allison Furr