toddcast

Today allow me to mix in a little movie review with this installment of Moments with the Minster.   Not long ago I went to see the film Yesterday .   It’s a delightful and heart-warming story of a struggling musician who mysteriously is brought to a world where the Beatles never existed. No one else but himself knows these songs that defined rock n roll in the 1960’s. Once he realizes this, he makes himself famous singing all the tunes of the Fab Four. He becomes an overnight sensation. Of course, he faces the moral dilemma of essentially stealing these songs as well as trying to balance a love interest. There are also some other amusing and interesting peculiarities of this modified world. It’s definitely worth the price of admission especially for those of us who grow up idolizing the Beatles. Now here comes a little spoiler, so if you don’t want to read on and are frustrated that you came to this column wanting some spiritual insight, then I suggest you just put down th...

Last month I got to take the trip of a lifetime. I got to go to Israel which, especially for a minister, is like letting a kid loose in a candy store. I ate up every single artifact, ruin, and historical site.   I have read about these places for decades, but to actually be there - to see these them with my own eyes - is beyond description. There it was all right in front of me. I walked through the holy city of Jerusalem. I looked down upon the ruins of ancient Jericho. I prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane just down from the Mount of Olives. I sailed on the Sea of Galilee.   Capernaum, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Dan, Beersheba, the Jordan River – all of them - I was there. My eyes have seen what only my ears had heard. All of those places mentioned in the pages of the Bible actually exist. One critique of Scripture is that it’s just a book of myths and fairy tales.   Stories created to provide a history and legacy for the Jewish nation.   Fables of a Jewish rabbi inve...