Sally Oakes's blog

Understanding Isaiah’s calling

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:36:05 -0500

I recently re-read Isaiah’s call in Isaiah 6. Usually we stop at verse 8, where, when God asks, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah volunteers and says, “Here am I. Send me.” This time, however, I read further. I read to what Isaiah was called.

Distracted and harried, and relying on Christ

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:29:16 -0500

OK, so it’s a new year. It seems I should write about resolutions or something, but nothing has come to me — besides, I’m as bad as anyone about breaking them. Then again, I could write about the expectation of what is to come in 2010, but really, no one can know what the year will bring; we just know that God will be there.

Saints we’re not, but ...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:58:15 -0500

Our world prizes perfection and we come to expect it. We expect it of others, and we expect it of ourselves. We strive for it and fall short and that often gets us demoralized, making us think that we’re somehow inadequate. We’re all too aware of our shortcomings, our mistakes, our past failures.

The ‘Drum Major’ instinct

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:39:20 -0400

Mark 10:35-45: “James and John came forward to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’”

The power of the spoken word

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:56:55 -0400

The psalmist prays, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Trusting in God’s love

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:38:06 -0400

There is a series of questions asked of persons to be ordained (ordinands) in the United Methodist Church. They include things like, “have you belief in God?” and “Do you find the precepts of the United Methodist Church to be consistent with Christian doctrine?” There are a number of others, but that’s the gist. However, there are two that stand out to me: “Are you going on to perfection?” and “Do you expect to be made perfect in love?”

The Epicurean Paradox

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:46:35 -0400

About 300 BC, there was a Greek philosopher who posed this question: “Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?”

Meeting God

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:13:34 -0400

A pastor once asked his congregation:
Dear fellow Christians — who worship the true and Triune God, the Holy Trinity: “What is God like? What would it be like to meet God, face to face?”

Healing spiritual disabilities

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:55:04 -0400

Last month, I wrote about meeting God with the sum of our parts, our scars, our wounds. It’s how the resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples — showing them the wounds left from his resurrection. It gives us hope that we, too, despite our wounds and our sins, can still share in that resurrection. This month, however, I’d like to focus on a time when there is healing from disability.

Bright hope for tomorrow

Tue, 05 May 2009 14:52:34 -0400

I had the pleasure of hearing a sermon by The late Rev. Dr. Nancy Eisland, author of The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability , when I was in seminary. In that sermon, she called me a TAB. TAB is an acronym disabled persons use for an able-bodied person. You know the A.B. stands, then, for “able bodied,” but what about the T? The T stands for temporarily. Temporarily Able Bodied Person. I was 29 years old, I could still do cartwheels and handstands! I didn’t need glasses. My knee hadn’t had its second injury and was stable. Now, at 47, I’m far from “disabled,” but I see a bit of what she means. She was born with her disability and that gave her a perspective much different from my own.

What does Jesus offer?

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:00:34 -0400

The following is based on John 6:24 – 35, where Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

What do you want?

Today’s prophets

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:28:56 -0400

In Deuteronomy 18:15-22, God, through Moses, gives God’s word to the people that they will need a new prophet — one like Moses himself, who speaks the words God puts in his mouth. The Israelites wonder, however, how they can tell whether or not a prophet is truly speaking God’s word. God replies, through Moses, that they can tell whether it’s God’s word by whether or not the word spoken comes true.

When the Spirit intervenes ...

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:19:02 -0500

The parking deck at Emory University Hospital can be pretty confusing because there are so many sections to it. Still, I’m familiar enough with it that I’ve never had much trouble.

Living with life’s adversities

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:38:27 -0500

We buried my father in law in Boise, Idaho, on Friday. He was, by profession, an electrical engineer. By hobby, he had been an avid backpacker, with his favorite trips taking place in the Sawtooth Mountains.

Advent: A time to wait and listen

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:44:00 -0500

For most Americans, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is marked by a marathon of Christmas preparations and celebrations. There is a tree to put up and decorate (including the traditional untangling of the tree lights), presents to buy, wrapping and mailing to get done. There are Christmas mission projects such as Operation Christmas Child, collections for a children’s home or Angel Tree. And that’s not to mention the marathon of Christmas parties, luncheons, get-togethers and gift exchanges. With our church activities plus my husband being in retail, I confess that I sometimes want to shout, “Wait! We might miss the joy that comes with expectant waiting if we keep charging ahead like this!”