Rev. Jim Keat is the Associate Minister of Digital Strategy & Online Engagement at The Riverside Church in New York City and the Director of Online Learning at the Center for Progressive Renewal. He is a divergent thinker, an ideation specialist, and an aspiring minimalist. In his spare time, Jim enjoys solving a Rubik’s cube, going on a long run, or playing with his cats, Whitman and Wendell. To find out more about Jim go to http://www.JimKeat.com or follow him on Twitter at @IdeasDoneDaily.
Posts By This Author
Burning Bush to Boston Common: You Are Standing on Holy Ground
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Take off your shoes.
No, I really mean it. Right now. Stop what you’re doing. Put down your phone, turn away from your computer screen. Loosen your laces, step out of your sandals, and free your feet from wherever they are currently confined.
Shoes off? Ok, now keep reading.
Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.
Looking for God Between ‘Nowhere’ and ‘Here’
As Wendell Berry reminds us, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Jacob’s story reminds us that it is not God who changes, suddenly appearing when previously absent, but it is Jacob who wakes up to a new awareness of where God is.
Finding Hope for the New Year in the Waters of Baptism
These are turbulent times. 2016 was a turbulent year. But the waters of baptism invite us to hope. We hold our breath, the water splashing against our skin. We hold our breath, anticipating what is to come. We hold our breath, we remember our baptism, and we have hope.
Looking for God in 2015
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You’ll always find what you’re looking for. Unless, of course, you’re Mary and Joseph, looking for your preteen son on your road trip home from the Passover festival in Jerusalem.
This is the scene found in Luke 2:41-52, the Gospel reading for the final Sunday of 2015. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus joined other travelers on their annual pilgrimage. At the end of the festival they begin their trek home. Mary and Joseph assume Jesus is behaving like a typical preteen, avoiding his parents and traveling with other friends and relatives. But after three days of searching for their twelve-year-old son, Mary and Joseph find him back in Jerusalem, talking with the teachers at the temple.
This is a story about searching for Jesus. This is a story about finding what you’re looking for.
How Jesus Overcomes 'Us Versus Them' Thinking
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When I was eighteen years old I knew that I knew everything there was to know, especially in regards to the “us” and the “them” of the world. Eighteen-year-old me knew that being gay was a sin and that LGBTQ people were not called to leadership in the church (and my conservative Christian college did nothing but reinforce these beliefs). But four short years later I found myself on a hill across from my alma mater, standing in solidarity with dozens of LGBTQ young adults and allies, advocating for change in Christian universities with policies that discriminated against LGBTQ people.
How did I get from “there” to “here”? How did my view of “us” and “them” shift so radically?