Doug Harrison

How to be a Valentine: A Note on Martyrdom.

Published February 14, 2012 by Doug Harrison

Today is a feast, a gift and remembrance, of an occasion I have yet see Hallmark really nail with one of its watercolored limericks: there once was a man so in love with God that he was beheaded for performing marriages in opposition to war. In defense of hallmark, that is a very hard picture to paint with water colors…

In the third century, Emperor Claudius had declared marriage illegal in order to encourage more young men to volunteer to be soldiers. Valentine, a celibate priest, opposed both the aggressive violence of the empire as well as the notion that the state alone held the reins of marriage. The priest knew how central marriage is to the life of the Church and couldn’t stop marrying people just because Claudius had other plans.

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This is How I Am Pro-Life. Now may I please have that phrase back?

Published February 8, 2012 by Doug Harrison

I hope the way I live with children celebrates their lives.
I hope men and women keep loving and enjoying each other and having more kids.
I hope those kids know I love them even before conception.
I hope I create community so no one in my life feels like a ‘single’ parent.
I hope I honor my father’s memory and love him after death.
I hope the women in my life know I think their breasts can be life giving miracles as well as something others desire.
I hope I help women love their own breasts and bodies as desirable miracles.

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The Lightbulb Conspiracy: Epiphany reminds us to go looking for God in all the wrong places

Published January 6, 2012 by Doug Harrison

Before their were lightbulbs, what would you put over a person’s head in a cartoon to show they had a bright idea or an epiphany? Candles seem like waxy danger. Today is the day we celebrate the day people started to really ‘get’ who Jesus was and it its a little surprising who these folks end up being. Its also surprising who not only didn’t get it, they tried to shut the “Jesus” thing down. On this the day we ccelebrate Epiphany, I think “getting” who these people really were, might also give us a little epiphany about who Jesus is as well.

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Hope is Found Between. December 25

Published December 26, 2011 by Doug Harrison

I am not one to whom hope comes easily, But it does come.

29 Days of Hope

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29 Days of Hope: A place to hold my shaky heart.

Published December 23, 2011 by Doug Harrison

Something happened to me at Roseanne’s birthday party. She can not sit up on her own let alone stand our walk. She does not speak. She can not feed herself and she can only eat soft foods. She is someone who many people see far more quickly as an “it” than a “hello my name is….” Her birthday party is one of those moments I can point back to and say, this is the moment that changed my life.

29 Days of Hope

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29 Days of Hope: A Resident Alien in Roswell Abducts Me.

Published December 23, 2011 by Doug Harrison

I liked going on tour with the college choir. The old music wasn’t much to my liking. I guess I harbored a conviction that the old church songs related to old people, that is was time for new songs

and “relevant” songs only. My sent me on a quest to stay with Don Adams when I got to Roswell New Mexico that would be a shift in my convictions. He gave me permission to believe that trying to prove Christians can be cool might be a less interesting endeavor than to learn to live a little, well, alien to what was relevant.

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4 ways to jumpstart the last minute holiday spirit.

Published December 22, 2011 by Doug Harrison

manhattan solstice 3 (Photo credit: Dave Kliman)

Whew! So that was the longest night of the year. I am not at all unfamiliar with its is like to be stuck in a night that does not seem to want to end. Sometimes the darkness is a habit of thinking that is hard to break.

This far in to the holiday season there are always a few folks who want to be in the spirit of things but just haven’t got there yet.

Well the night is over. The sun returns and I think surprise is an important part of a complete breakfast. So here are a couple ideas to get the ball rolling.

1) Shock yourself: Some gifts you open, some gifts open you…

29 Days of Hope

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The Better Angels of Juarez’ Nature

Published December 22, 2011 by Doug Harrison

I always thought glitter would play an important part in the revolution. In Juarez, Mexico members of a small church put it on their faces and their hand made wings. This is standard for for a lot of Christmas pageants but these angels aren’t about to sing in the annual cantata. They are headed downtown Juarez. What they are planning to do really puts teeth and nails in hope.

29 Days of Hope

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29 Days of Hope: In Defense of Giving Gifts.

Published December 22, 2011 by Doug Harrison

Swearing off the exorbitant gift giving of Christmas is something I cannot help but get behind. However, we also run the risk of being, well, scroogey. Giving gifts is something that is fundamentally human and to relinquish the practice to those who trample each other at Walmart might be as much of a concession to consumerism as maxing out the visa cards. “Spend money or don’t give gifts.” That doesn’t sound at all right to me.

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Actually, Yeah. Mary Did Know.

Published December 20, 2011 by Doug Harrison

annunciation I love the songs that capture what horror it must have felt like to be a teenage girl who God had chosen for, well, anything. I feel both a sense of honor and terror every time I think that there is good on earth God would have me do.

So songs like “Breath of Heaven,” by Amy Grant and “Mary Did You Know,” by Mark Lowry tap into our sense of how overwhelming we would have been and how overwhelmed we are right now. Through our eyes we can only imagine such a call to be suffocating, full of fear. This, however, is not at all like the song Mary actually sang.

29 Days of Hope

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Author: Doug Harrison