The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
April 6, 2008
Vol. 11 no. 13

Everything But...
           For the next few weeks this will be a bodiless Sink. I won’t be in the pulpit at Knox-Metropolitan to fill out in a sermon what I have started on this page. Mark Wartman, Tom Stickland, and Erin Shoemaker will preach instead in fresh ways for all of us. Meanwhile, I have landed in Princeton, New Jersey, for a sabbatical leave and it is warmer.
           I wish to thank the members of Knox-Metropolitan for allowing me this opportunity to get warmer. Actually this morning it was -3.5 and it’s more humid here, so I haven’t escaped yet completely the memories of winter. I am one of the Pastor-Theologians-in-Residence at the Center of Theological Inquiry, next door to Princeton Theological Seminary. I would encourage you to look up its website at http://www.ctinquiry.org. There is a link to “Who’s New at CTI?” and you will find me at the very bottom of the list, appropriately. However, you may notice that my affiliation is listed as Knox-Metropolitan Lutheran Church. Just to allay fears, I have not “gone Lutheran,” nor am I trying to steer our church towards a different denominational tradition. I have mentioned it several times over the year to staff, but the webmaster doesn’t know that John Knox and Martin Luther never were friends. A new version of the website is debuting June 1st, so maybe we’ll be United again.
           Princeton is a small college town caught between the mega-metropolises of New York and Philadelphia. In such a town it is easy to run regularly into people you know. I saw a Swedish friend yesterday with his university student daughter whom I had met when she was 9. Our church is like that, by the way. You come out of the anonymous bustle of the secular city and meet people who become friends, maybe holy friends.