10 recent blog posts
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the kissed leaves
Posted 12 days ago
Just after the clapping rainthe kissed leavesleave theirfresh scent in the rapt air,wrapping the nakedsoul as a beloved bridewrapped in a sheetnow blest for the mess.The loveless awaken to God’s sweet breath,nearer than death.
The Kissed Leaves by Troy Cady 
Free ebook for New Fathers
Posted 14 days ago
I recently published a book called Becoming Dad: A True Story of One Man’s Transformation from Clueless Husband to Involved and Nurturing Father. I’m giving away a big chunk of the book (the pregnancy section) as a free ebook.
http://www.becomingdadbook.com/free-ebook/
Enjoy!
in memory of Joy
Posted 3 weeks ago
on the anniversary of her passing 22 years ago
Riverhead,you were no Dead Sea—deep as knees bent in flowing praise.
She swam spirited in youwith frayed cutoffs,unafraid, play-full.
You were drawn out as Moses,tractable as Red Seadeliverance,ever partial to the Passover poor.
You were strong enough for Jesus’ Galilean feet feat—
Laid out your life for God,became lakesod,then changed yourself from water into wine.Divine at last, your passage felt as vinegar on a stickto our cracked lipsmoaning for reprieve—(y)ourself poured out. Believeme when I say
silent fell the rain the day you died(we cried)to become a river in Paradiseflanked by endless trees of life.
Until she can rest her frayed heart at easeon your banksthis earth will be little more than Golgothabeside dead seas.
Your leaving was the spear in her side
from which her blood and your water flow.
Your life her lifepoured out as strong floodsdeep as knees bent in the solidarity of mourning.
in memory of Joy by Troy Cady
charles colson and second chances
Posted 4 weeks ago
Charles Colson (October 16, 1931 - April 21, 2012)
Second chances are undeserved. I have discovered this first-hand. I have transgressed more times than I care to admit, yet a new sun rises and I’m given another shot at life. There is nothing I have done or could do to earn such second chances. They are sheer grace.
The second chance is granted in spite of track records. Call it an act of faith—believing a person can produce a certain outcome when all they have demonstrated in the past is failure. Second chances are God’s way of hoping. Granting others a second chance can be our way of hoping, too.
Perhaps there was none more acquainted with the freedom that comes from second chances than Charles Colson. In Life Sentence Colson told of his role in the Nixon Watergate scandal so as to recount the extravagance of unreasonable grace as he’d received it personally.
He reached the end of himself, knew first-hand the dead-end of unchecked ambition. In prison he had no choice but to follow a new path. He was (in his words) born again. Think of it as a second chance of eternal duration.
“Yeah, right,” others scoffed. “That sure seems convenient. ‘Born again’, eh? Sounds more like an easy out. Why should a low-life like Colson be granted a second chance? Do you have any idea how many people he’s hurt? He should have to pay for what he’s done! There is no reason he should get off scott-free like that.”
That’s right. ...
Belly Art
Posted 4 weeks ago
Watch our midwife draw the baby on April’s belly for our son Teo…
sabbath as destiny
Posted 5 weeks ago
If you want to recover a sense of Sabbath in your life, I highly recommend reading The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Here’s something that stuck with me when I had the joy of reading it recently.
In the biblical creation account we come across an interesting juxtaposition. God creates light and sees that it is good. God creates the sea, the land and plants. He sees that all this, too, is good. He creates the sun, moon and stars—and sees that they are good. Notice what happens next:
He creates the creatures of the sea and sky. He sees that they are good. And he blesses them.
The first blessing.
On the sixth day, he creates the creatures of the land--both animals and humans. He sees that they are good. And he blesses them, too.
The second blessing.
He views all his handiwork and says of it all, “It is very good.”
Then, the seventh day comes.
And he creates rest. A whole new kind of creation. We tend to think of rest as the cessation of creation, but here we see that rest represents the pinnacle of creation.
And—notice!--God blesses the seventh day. And makes it holy.
The progression:
Good,
Good,
Good,
Good and blessed,
Good and blessed,
All of this is very good. But, the seventh day is even better; the seventh day is—notice!--
Good and blessed and (the text says) set apart as holy.
You will notice that the first two blessings are for the movers and workers (days five and six) in the space that God created (days one through four) but the ...
game 1 of blackhawks playoff hockey tonight!
Posted 5 weeks ago
Yeah, baby! The Blackhawks play game 1 tonight of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Phoenix Coyotes. I am SO looking forward to this! The only regret I have is that in the playoffs no games are decided by a shootout. I say this because there is nothing more entertaining than watching Patrick Kane make his opponents' goalies look like toddlers in net. Behold, against Minnesota:
and against Detroit just a few days ago:
Incredible stick-handling! 
the poet as a prophet
Posted 5 weeks ago
There is a reason the prophets of the Old Testament were all poets. In his book The Prophetic Imagination theologian Walter Brueggemann states the prophets were those who sought to cultivate an alternative consciousness to the status quo via the creation of fresh language. They did not merely activate a group of people to address one or two burning issues; they overturned the entire order of things through telling a whole new story. This whole new story was sufficient to guide the new community faithfully because it was embedded deeply in the hearts of the people. And it was embedded deeply because it was marked by artistry.
Stories that are truly create-ive require the fresh use of language. The best way to use language in surprising ways is through the medium of poetry.
Specifically, Brueggemann states that the prophet-poet speaks according to a certain dialectic: critiquing and energizing. On the one hand, the prophet-poet speaks in a language that critiques the status quo; on the other hand, they present (at the same time) a vision that energizes a community to hope for new possibilities, alternative realities. Poetry embodies this dialectic: seeing things the way they are and seeing things the way they could be in a simultaneous fashion.
The critiquing is no mere judgment, however. It is a critique of the oppressors through anguish-in-solidarity with the marginalized and victimized.
Jesus is the quintessential prophet: he critiqued Roman imperialism and the religious establishment’s oppression by becoming one of the sufferers. He identified with the marginalized ...
signs
Posted 5 weeks ago
Among other images, Lesslie Newbigin states that the Church is a sign of the kingdom of God. This is a powerful image, but I feel we miss something of its power because of the way we use the word “sign” in modern times.
Today, we primarily think of signs in one of two ways. Either…
1. A sign is an object that points to a destination. For example, a certain sign on the highway may instruct me to keep right if I want to drive to Minneapolis.
Or
2. A sign is an object that names something present. For example, I know I’ve arrived at the theater when I see the sign above its entrance.
To be sure, both of those meanings are true when we refer to the Church as a sign of the kingdom of God. There is a not-yet side of the kingdom of God. It is something that is present in some way, but it is also something to which we point, that we will reach some time in the future. But, second, the Church is also to be a presence that names something already present—that is, the kingdom of God—for Jesus announced the in-breaking of the kingdom of God in the here and now. It is “at hand,” he said. It is imminent and available to us.
That said, if we only had those two options from which to choose in amplifying the meaning of what Newbigin states about the Church, we would prefer the latter for the Church is indeed ...
firstfruits
Posted 6 weeks ago
After the Exodus, God instructed the people of Israel to observe three festivals each year. The first was the Passover. This observance marked the beginning of an annual cycle. The nation had a new “first month.” Everything they did from that point on was intended to emanate from the narrative of deliverance.
The second festival took place when fields produced their first fruits. Though it was not time for the big harvest yet, this was cause for celebration because the emergence of firstfruits served as a sign pointing to something greater. Of course, there was no guarantee that disaster would not strike between the festival of firstfruits and the third festival of ingathering. So, observing this second festival was purely an act of faith—or, better yet, let’s call it anticipation, hope, expectation.
It is no coincidence that the pivotal events of the Christian faith coincide with those of Judaism. Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on or close to Passover week. Jesus’ last supper was a Jewish Seder. The death and resurrection of Jesus correspond to the Exodus deliverance. Like our Jewish brothers and sisters, the Christian experiences the beginning of their story as an act of liberation.
Once deliverance is claimed, the Christian may well ask, “What next?” This, too, corresponds to the experience of Israel in the Old Testament.
It should not surprise us, then, to consider the answer to that question lies in the promise of firstfruits, like it did for the nation of Israel.
The New Testament calls those ...
