An Expression of Joy and Humility

The following was part of my morning devotions. It is in The Daily Office (St. Louis: CPH, 1965), 254–6. An Expression of Joy and Humility Let us praise God in gladness and humility for all great and simple joys and for the weak things of the earth which have confounded the strong. For the gift …

Continue reading An Expression of Joy and Humility

No Half Measures

On this day in 1976, the day the church was singing how glad one can be when going to the house of the Lord, Martin Franzmann fell asleep in Christ. As this March 28th coincides not with Laetare Sunday but with Holy Thursday, I offer up a sermon Franzmann composed on a little line from …

Continue reading No Half Measures

A Word in Our Pockets

It has been just over 8 months since we came home to find someone we didn't recognize. Yesterday that saga drew to what is hoped to be its final breath, the man who was on our property that day has been found guilty and sentenced. To be honest, neither my wife nor I wanted to …

Continue reading A Word in Our Pockets

Take they our life…

Last Wednesday my wife, son, and I pulled up to our house to find a car in the driveway we did not recognize. I told them to wait in the car and walked up to the front door and found it still locked. It was then that I  heard a sound on the side of …

Continue reading Take they our life…

we are…

For the first time, I am spending a couple of days away from my wife and 3 month old son. It wasn't an expected thing but, as circumstances would have it, I am reverting to my bachelor self for a brief moment. That means, above all, that I am wasting as much time as possible …

Continue reading we are…

gift giving and heretic hitting…

Today seems like as good of a day as any to begin again. It has been almost two months since I last posted and quite a bit has happened. Classes finished rapidly, ending with the best gpa I have had at CSL, and my wife and I were whisked away to the east coast to …

Continue reading gift giving and heretic hitting…

more than enough: toward A theology of hope

The following is a submission for our student publication at Concordia Seminary. I'd love to hear your feedback so that I can improve as a writer and theologian.   More Than Enough: Toward a Theology of Hope By M. E. Borrasso   On the heels of the first presidential debate of this election season, pundits …

Continue reading more than enough: toward A theology of hope

paradoxical justice

These past few weeks have flown by. It feels like just yesterday I was getting ready to go through orientation and here I sit, weeks later, knee deep in classes and midway through the 23rd Symposium. The “Theological Symposium” put on by Concordia Seminary is an event that happens every year, at least for the …

Continue reading paradoxical justice

a fresh start?

As the calendar page is about to turn once again, a new chapter in my life is beginning. Over two months have passed since I last tried to get this blog a sense of regularity, and who knows, maybe one day it will find that. But rather than apologize and give weak excuses for my …

Continue reading a fresh start?

part 1: the church is a whore…

THE CHURCH IS A WHORE, BUT SHE IS MY MOTHER The above phrase, regardless of who actually said it, encapsulates a reality too easily dismissed as a plausible representation of the relationship between the individual and the church. In an age when the latest trends espouse an escape from the church and organized religion for …

Continue reading part 1: the church is a whore…