Jeremy Riley: In a few words

I did something recently that I thought I’d never do.  I unfollowed somebody I knew on social media. (*Gasp*) For years, I have toyed with the notion of implementing a Facebook purge.  For years, I have considered the great social media cleanse that so many others perform on a regular basis.  Usually I like to [...]

Today is Fat Tuesday, the day where you and I can get so much sin out of our lives that we can rightly prepare for Ash Wednesday and 40 days of preparation for Easter.  While not getting into the questions surrounding why an individual should go overboard before a time of repentance, Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/Shrove [...]

(Part 3 of 4 on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic Life Together) If we are honest, most people have had a bad experience with church.  While some might have been burnt by Christians in some capacity and don’t want to be a part of it (which is understandable), others might fall into the category of Christians, according to [...]

“Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together   Beep. Beep. Beep. 5 a.m. The alarm clock beckons me to begin a new day, a new chance to go after my dream. What a battle it is [...]

As mentioned previously in other posts, my Spiritual Traditions class from earlier this year has prompted me to consider the necessity of discipline.  I know that it is not a new thing to say, but we live in a culture that generally has a short attention span.  Even within the evangelical wing of Protestantism, we [...]

The Christian message is not the elimination of desire but the transformation of desire.  The overcoming of destructive desire and developing the inward reality of right desire is what we are after and what we can experience as our life is soaked in Jesus and his way. As I have been working through my Christian [...]

Have you ever had that period in your life where you felt drained, empty, and utterly spent?  I have felt that way many times in my life, even in seminary. I, like most Christians, will simply drudge along or quit my habits for a bit, taking a break from it all.  So the question that [...]

For one of my classes about Christian Spirituality, we were assigned readings about some of the great men and women of the faith.  Monks, nuns, preachers, and theologians were all introduced to us and their spiritual practices were explained.  While all were very impressive and they challenged me to take my faith more seriously, one [...]

A year ago while I was learning about spiritual disciplines and silence, I was presented with the idea that for me (a Westernized person) embracing silence is like trying to ignore a tree full of screaming monkeys. With that in mind, I heard on the radio awhile back about a recent book on Willpower.  The [...]

2012 begins!  There are many things that we can do with the start of another year.  I hope to get the most out of it since the Mayan calendar tells me that the end of humanity will come very soon.  So what will I be planning on accomplishing before the clock tolls December 21, 2012? [...]