Who Has A Friend?

November 15, 2009 Bill Kerley

Dear Folks -

I want to thank all of you for making the lecture series with Canon
Dr. Peter Sills a reality. Special thanks to Diane Schenke for
coordinating the Sills' schedule during the ten days they were with us
in Houston.

This week in Ordinary Life I gave a talk titled "Who Has a Friend?" It
is on the parable of Jesus about a man who goes to his neighbor in the
middle of the night requesting bread to feed an unexpected guest. This
is what the scholars call an "identity parable." It raises the
question, "What is the character of your God?" The reason that is an
important question is because how we answer it determines how we see
who we are and, consequently, how we behave in the world.

I am so grateful that I get to give these talks. I am sure I benefit
more than anyone else from the work required to bring them to
fruition. Thank you again for making this work possible.

Much love,

Bill Kerley

Click here to Download Sildeshow Presentation 11:15:00 Character_of_God.pdf

Click here to Download text 20091115.pdf

Click here to Download audio 20091115.mp3

Canon Dr. Peter Sills & Rev. Dr. Bill Kerley chat

November 8, 2009 Bill Kerley

(There is no text available for this Sunday.)

Click here to Download audio 2009110.mp38

Inside The Circle

October 25, 2009 Bill Kerley

Dear Folks -

This week in Ordinary Life the talk I gave is based on the parable of Jesus about a man who had two sons. He asked them both to go and work in his vineyard. One said he would not go but later changed his mind and went. The other said he would go but didn't.

This is a disarming little tale - as most of the parables are. Rather then contributing to divisiveness, as the parable has most often been interpreted, it is about the matters of true authority and identity. Both of these sons brought shame and honor to their father. But, in spite of that, both remained his sons. I use my interpretation of this parable to say that we are all "Inside the Circle."

By the way, thanks again to Susanna Hooper and Richard Wingfield, we are posting the overhead aspect of my talk on the Ordinary Life website and Susanna is working on a way to put this together so that what is on the website duplicates what is done in class.

The full text I used for the talk is below. As usual, there is both a printable and an audio version posted.

Much love,

Bill Kerley

(There is no audio available for this Sunday. The audio file is not opening.)

Click here to Download text 20091025.pdf

Click here to Download 10:25:09_-_Inside_the_Circle Keynote presentation slides.pdf

An Appeal for Realism and Faith

October 18, 2009 Bill Kerley

Dear Folks -

We are beginning a bit of an experiment in both Ordinary Life and on the Ordinary Life website. Often when I give a talk I use overheads to make a point. Sometimes these are words and sometimes they are cartoons or photographs. I have started using a "powerpoint" type of presentation to do this and we are going to put pdf files of the talks on the website. As I said, this is an experiment both in the class and on the website. After a few weeks we'll evaluate the effectiveness of this. It is difficult to tell where these e-mails go or who views the website. I know for a fact that we have people who read Ordinary Life in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, New Zealand as well as the United States. I hope this change enhances the experience of the Ordinary Life talks for those who can't attend in person.

This week I began dealing with the parable of Jesus in an effort to see how we can experience the transformation some of those who first him did. This week I dealt with the parable of the mustard seed. It was, I believe, a story Jesus told to appeal to what I call religious realism and an appeal to creative imagination.