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Clay Nelson © 24 July 2022
Think back two and half years ago to the day before you heard of Coronavirus breaking out in Wuhan, China. Whatever that was like for you, that was normal. For me, I was a newlywed. I had not even learned what that new normal meant for me yet. I certainly hadn’t anticipated that we would spend most of two and a half years sheltering in place, just the two of us with Waldo for company, discovering what our normal was. So when I hear someone longing for life to return to normal, I’m not sure what their normal is. Perhaps, I should focus on knowing the future instead. Irony, apparently, is my forte.
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Clay Nelson © 17 July 2022
I would like to give you a peek behind the curtain to see one of the blessings, or possibly curses, of being in my line of work. If you have been doing it as long as I have, it is nearly impossible not to see the world continuously through theological lenses. It is not a conscious decision anymore. It is just my reality and as involuntary as breathing. Nothing I’m doing is exempt from theological reflection. It doesn’t matter if it is reading my Facebook feed, bingeing on Netflix, hearing music in many genres, holding Rachel’s hand, playing peek-a-boo with a grandchild, eating a Macca burger, playing fetch with Waldo, or walking on the beach after a storm. You get my gist. Bloody everything reverberates with theological discernment for me. Everything. It can be exhausting as it feeds my imagination to overflowing.
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David Hines © 3 July 2022
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Usually when I preach in church it’s because I’ve done some homework on a subject and think it might be useful to other people. Today I’m in the opposite situation. I’ve done a survey on Christian karakia. But the problem is more complicated than I realised, so I would appreciate your input before I come to a firm conclusion. As a second step, I would like to take your conclusions to other groups, such as atheists, Jews and Muslims, and then to the government.
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Clay Nelson © 26 June 2022
Welcome this morning to history. This is the first public celebration of an indigenous peoples’ holiday in the world. Matariki, sometimes referred to as the Maori New Year, has become a celebration for all New Zealanders. It centres on a cluster of stars that in the west were known as The Pleiades or Seven Sisters. They are 410 light years away and are part of the constellation Taurus.
The Maori named them after the brightest of nine stars called Matariki, the mother of the other eight. Each star is honoured for a specific thing.
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Shirin Caldwell, Brenda Bendall, Jonathon Mason © 19 June 2022
In November 2021 Clay delivered a service called ‘COP26 Blah, blah, blah‘. He began by saying: Greta Thunberg has been teaching us how to speak truth to power. She has resisted being a token voice used by governments lacking political will and by global companies seeking to monetise efforts to stop killing the planet while doing their best to protect their financial interests in extracting carbon.
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Clay Nelson © 12 June 2022
A quick perusal of the internet tells me I should wait for one of the equinoxes, when day and night are equal, to muse on balance and absolutely not when the winter solstice is approaching, but where is the fun in that? When reality is in balance in perfect alignment with my life, where is the challenge? My experience says that when I really need to know how to keep my balance is when my world is dark, nameless, unknown, and infinite. It is my spiritual practice to find light in darkness, name the nameless, accept the unknown, and welcome the infinite.
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Clay Nelson © 5 June 2022
Forty years ago, this past week, my seminary released me into the world to begin my ordained ministry. In all those years, an Annual General Meeting has never provoked me to preach a musing on one of the discussions held.
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Clay Nelson © 22 May 2022
No one was more surprised than I when moving to New Zealand that I would put my Anglican collar back on after eight years with the American Unitarian Universalists. I did impose one condition on myself before doing so –– I would no longer dance around my progressive religious views in the pulpit. Traditionalists and conservatives be damned. It was time to stand up for my beliefs. Yet a lot had changed. My sermons were not just on a table at the back of the church gathering dust but on the Internet for all to see. They still are and may always be. I think of them as my afterlife. Taking a position at St Matthew-in-the-city had already made me suspect in the eyes of traditionalists and conservatives. I was about as popular as a skunk at a garden party after my first billboard to go viral globally drew attention to my views on TV, radio, the press and blogs. My notoriety gained me few friends throughout the country. My hate mail and death threats increased dramatically. I gained no popularity when one of my conservative colleagues did some deep dumpster diving on the Internet, discovered my Unitarian connections and outed me on his blog.
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Clay Nelson © 22 May 2022
I was never a big fan of magicians because I don’t enjoy feeling conned or suspending my disbelief. Then I encountered Penn and Teller. Who couldn’t love magicians with a TV show called Bullshit? They are scientific sceptics and atheists who love making mince out of sacred cows. I particularly enjoyed their trick of making an American flag seem to disappear by wrapping it in a copy of the United States Bill of Rights, and apparently setting the flag on fire, so that the flag is gone but the Bill of Rights remains. I saw the trick first on West Wing. If their unique routine weren’t enough they have written numerous books. I am most drawn to two of their titles: God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales and Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!: More Magical Tales from the Author of God, No!
Continue reading Stewardship is more about magic than money