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On broken hearts and crazy love
open heart by marianne konvalinka There are never any words sufficient to address the senseless acts of violence that are happening too frequently in our world. Our instinct as human beings is to...
View ArticleGene Puckett, my father, and the best member of our family!
In 1978, Gene Puckett was the major speaker at the retirement dinner for my father, G. W. Bullard, as executive director-treasurer of the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania-South Jersey. He and dad had...
View ArticleThere is life after the storm
In 1994 I was serving at the First Baptist Church of Williams near Jacksonville, Ala. when a tornado touched down on Palm Sunday near Ragland and cut a trail to Rome, Ga., demolishing hundreds of...
View ArticleMaking (theological) sense of natural disaster
Like many, I’ve followed the story of the tornado-spawned tragedy in Oklahoma. The images called up memories of when an EF-4 tornado swept through Murfreesboro, Tenn., where I served as a pastor at the...
View ArticleI’m playing the race card
I blogged last year about the Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman case. Specifically, I shared my uneasiness with claims of “God’s plan” being part of the rhetoric. The verdict is in. I’m not a lawyer,...
View ArticleA prayer for peace
In his recent lament over the Trayvon Martin tragedy, evangelical leader Jim Wallis implored: “If there ever was a time that demonstrated why racially and culturally diverse congregations are needed —...
View ArticleZimmerman verdict reveals flawed jury selection process
A jury comprised of five white women and one Latina has acquitted George Zimmerman on all charges. This outcome was largely determined by the way we select juries in America. Imagine that two women who...
View ArticleAngle of repose
Death is bigger than us. All of us. And when we brush up against it, we leave wounded—especially when we lose the ones we love (i.e. friends, family, etc). We leave hurt. Over two years ago my wife’s...
View ArticleGraces I have experienced when grieving
This list began after my Dad died in 1991. I chose not to preach at his funeral, but several weeks later, in a sermon, I listed some of the graces I had experienced since his death. They are...
View ArticleBetween the lullaby and the requiem
The hospital waiting room on the fourth floor at Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center in Anniston was empty and quiet. The only sounds were the dinging of the elevator in the distance and the...
View ArticleWhere is God when bad stuff happens?
Where is God when bad things happen? Across the ages, this question has perplexed and frustrated those afflicted with suffering, grief, and pain. Theologians and philosophers have wrestled with...
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Praying for death
A year ago we took my mother home on hospice care. She died three days later, mercifully freed from a series of chronic health problems that were cascading out of control. But getting her out of the...
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Learning to suffer
www.flickr.com/photos/afagen/ I find it extremely ironic that the Church, which claims to be the embodiment the lamb that was slain, has such a difficult time ministering to those who are suffering....
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Life On The Way
www.flickr.com/photos/mjviljan/ I have it all planned out. My wife, 36 weeks pregnant, is due with our third child…on Easter Sunday, just 4 weeks away! How exciting! For a pastor who seemingly always...
View ArticleGrief isn’t a disease
She’d lost her husband to a terrible, slow disease and now had just buried her son. I asked her how she was. “Some days, she said, “I just stand in the middle of my house and scream.” What a wise woman...
View ArticleWill you be known when you die?
Years ago, there was a national ad campaign aimed at helping Americans understand the importance of going to church. One of my favorite ads in the series showed pallbearers carrying a casket in the...
View ArticleDesperate to avoid (dealing with) death
Recently I spoke at a conference of Retirement Community Chaplains. My thesis was that people who deal with the vicissitudes of life best tend to deal best with the reality of death. There are...
View ArticleIf spiritual gifts are from God, why do they make you uncomfortable?
Many years ago when walking down the hall in the building where I worked, I decided I would stop by Ken’s office and ask about him. It was discovered several months earlier that Ken had a growth behind...
View ArticleDying well, part 1
Do you want to die well? Do you want to die with dignity? I suspect that desire resides in the hearts of just about everyone. But, what does it really mean to die well? I’ll admit, at 32 and...
View ArticleDying well, part 2
In part one I asked some big questions, shared the tragic story of Brittany Maynard, and offered a quick explanation as to why we as Christians cannot support her decision to end her life “on her own...
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