Osler's Razor

This is going to be a big week:  Tomorrow I will be presenting a mid-day reflection at St. Thomas with Susan Stabile on confession (info here), and then a week from today I am giving the sermon at First Covenant church here in Minneapolis in the morning, then heading off to Boston in the afternoon (to give two talks at a Harvard Law symposium on narcotics legislation).  

The sermon is on Psalm 8.  The people who know me are laughing to themselves a little right now-- they know that I never venture far from the gospels, and that the Old Testament is... well, I know as much about that as I do about luge.  Still, I look forward to the challenge, and know that the congregation there is loving and forgiving as might be necessary.

What that means is that I will spend some time lying on my couch this week.  Hulitt Gloer taught me how to write a sermon, and one thing he taught me was the importance of a "brooding period"-- that time where you think through the meaning of the scripture without writing.  I've found that it is important not just for preaching, but other presentations and writing as well.  The mind needs to work things out without a pen in your hand or your laptop open; I learned this late in life.