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This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

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September 17, 2024 | Leave a Comment

The PWDL

Let’s talk about the People We Don’t Like. Let’s call them the PWDL for short. 

I’m not talking about enemies, i.e. people who have actually done harm to us or to people we love or to projects or work that matters to us. I’m talking about the PWDL. We just don’t like them. They don’t share our faith, or our politics, or our lifestyles, or our commitment to the Broncos. They’ve made decisions we don’t like: sending their kids out of district or consistently mowing their lawn on Saturday at 6 a.m. They innocently annoy us. They just are not our cup of tea.

“Not my cup of tea” is actually my favorite way to describe these folks. It goes light. It casts no judgment. It declares definitively that the “not liking” part of the situation is my responsibility only. The other cup of tea has done nothing wrong.

Instead of PWDL, perhaps I should call these folks about whom I’m writing today the NMCOTs. Or maybe not. Let’s stick to the PWDL.

The first thing worth noting about thy PWDL is that we can’t avoid them. Oh, we can try. The larger the community in which we live, the easier time we may have segregating ourselves. Here in our small town, though, it’s almost impossible. It’s tough to hide from someone when there are only two grocery stores in town and one post office. We work with them. We sit next to them in the bleachers during the JV volleyball game. We (gulp) go to church with them. [Read more…]

Bible, Discipleship, God, Jesus Christ, Small town, Spiritual maturity Tagged: Hate, Love, Ninevites, Small town


May 10, 2023 | 1 Comment

The Spiritual Gift of Suspicion

You may have heard these before: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues. These are the spiritual gifts (or at least the ones listed in 1 Corinthians). 

Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in Suspicion (1941)Add exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, prophecy (again), service, and teaching (from Romans); apostleship, evangelism, the pastorate, prophecy (yes, again), and teaching (from Ephesians); and the sometimes uncomfortable gifts some scholars include like celibacy, hospitality, martyrdom, missions, and poverty. 

Healing sounds great. Martyrdom, not so much. Nevertheless, they are all gifts from God.

Yet, I want to offer the modest proposal of a subcategory of spiritual gifts. I want to add the spiritual gift of suspicion. Hear me out. [Read more…]

Deception, Discernment, Sin, Spiritual gifts, Spiritual maturity Tagged: discernment, fraud, guilt, spiritual gifts, suspicion, trust


November 5, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Letting go

I’m a hanger-on. I hang onto things…memories, old receipts, friendships, bad song lyrics. There’s good and bad in hanging on.

       “The stripped and shapely maple grieves

                          the ghosts of her departed leaves”

John Updike’s poem, “November,” in A Child’s Calendar, chimes to me the beginning of the holiday season:  the over-eating of Thanksgiving, the frenzy of Advent, the bone-deep joy of Christmas, and the excitement of Epiphany all begin after this reminder that all gain is loss. All loss is gain.  And we are the better for it.  

This fall has been a lovely one in our lower Arkansas Valley of Colorado. Ours is never the glamour autumn of New England, but this year the river bottom turned flaming yellow, the backyard trees orange and lighter brown, and the leaves crunched under my feet on my slow morning jogs in City Park.  [Read more…]

Expectation, Spiritual maturity, Time Tagged: autumn, expectation, John Updike, letting go


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This is the day that
the Lord has made;
let us rejoice
and be glad in it.

– Psalm 118:24
Rev. Dr. MJ Romano

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Bible Verse of the Day

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:25
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