PlainSpeech Messages | Find YOUR way to GRACE.
I recently read a message I’d given in 1984 and felt a mixture of embarrassment and surprise. Embarrassed because it seems inadequate now, and surprised by how much my worldview has changed. Twenty-five years from now, I might read these messages and have a similar reaction. I offer no guarantee that my work or words will endure the eroding effects of time. I can only assure you these thoughts have been helpful to me, and perhaps a few others, today. With that qualification, I offer them to you.
~ Philip
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Christianity 101: Does Jesus Save Us?
Back when I was 16, and the Catholics traded me to the Quakers for two draft picks yet to be announced, I had to learn a whole new way of doing church. Out went the male-only leadership and obeying them always, in came Quaker women on a mission from God and staying...
Christianity 101: How Jesus Became God and Why
VIEW VIDEO When I was a kid, we had two dogs and a cat claimed by my siblings. I kept telling my mother I wanted a pet of my very own, and she kept resisting, not wanting another to tend another pet. But then I contracted a serious illness that our family doctor,...
Christianity 101: What God Can’t Do
VIEW VIDEO When I was a kid there was this boy in my catechism class named Matt, who, though appearing human, was thought to be demonic. When Father McLaughlin at our Catholic Church gave a sermon in which he described the devil, everyone turned and looked at Matt....
Christianity 101: God
VIEW VIDEO I was talking with a young person this week who wants to be a doctor and I thought what a noble profession medicine is, how when you’re a doctor people respect your advice, because they know you’ve studied many years and passed a test confirming your...
Stuff I Want to Do Before I Croak: A Geezer’s Manifesto (12)
VIEW VIDEO Before I became your pastor some 23 years ago, back when I had hair and was full of the vigor of youth, I pastored Irvington Friends Meeting up in the city. The meeting was begun in the early 1950’s in the basement of a bank, then in 1957 built a lovely...
Stuff I Want to Do Before I Croak: A Geezer’s Manifesto (11)
VIEW VIDEO Our granddaughter Madeline, who’s in the second grade, has a schoolmate who wears an Apple watch, which his parents use to track his whereabouts. When I was a kid, your parents tracked you the old-fashioned way, mothers calling one another to rat you out....
Stuff I Want to Do Before I Croak: A Geezer’s Manifesto (10)
VIEW VIDEO The year I turned 21, the television show Cheers aired on NBC. I was working at Public Service Indiana and several of my co-workers wanted to take me to a bar. I had only been in one bar my entire life, the Green Lantern in Danville, when I was 8 or 9 and...
Stuff I Want to Do Before I Croak: A Geezer’s Manifesto (9)
VIEW VIDEO We had a wonderful Christmas. I am the proud owner of a new shirt and a book on architecture, given to me by our younger son, Sam, and his wife, Kelsea. I’m like George Costanza, in my dream life I’ve wanted to be an architect, designing lovely places for...
Christmas Message 2022
VIEW VIDEO I was browsing through a book recently and saw a picture of a Black Santa Claus, which seemed unusual, since all the Santa’s I’ve ever known were white as chalk. Technically, since Santa isn’t real, he could be any color, or a she for that matter, but...
Stuff I Want to Do: A Geezer’s Manifesto (8)
VIEW VIDEO I was recently over in the old meetinghouse, snooping around the meetingroom, imagining what it was like to have been there in 1892, 130 years ago, when it was built. Just as an aside, our old meetinghouse had a good run. According to architects, the...