Pastoral Letters

Pastor Ken Wilson of the Blue Ocean Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan, replies to What Is It All About?, my Pastoral Letter of last week. An Atheist without guile, indeed. Your Gilchrist memories triggered my own, for some reason, of a time I was in my parents attic–it must have been when they were moving out of the Detroit house to the Southfield apartment. Under what they called “the eaves”, in the second floor attic remodeled as a master bedroom, was a box of letters. And the one that came to me like a bolt of revelation was one my father saved, written to him ...

Dear Pastor Kenny: Reconnecting after 45 years apart (and linking up on the facebookery) has been a blessing, if you don’t mind this Atheist appropriating a religious term. Watching your growing politicization since we renewed our friendship in November of 2014 has been a wonderment to behold. Certainly your walk in the desert began before we rediscovered each other, when you started the thinking that led to the research, which resulted in your writing A Letter To My Congregation. You ran headlong into church and LGBT politics after it was published in book form. Soon after we reconnected, church politics ran ...

Dear Pastor Kenny: Thank you so much for the book. It was on my doorstep when I arrived home. I was locked out when I got here (long story), so I read it and finished it while waiting for the locksmith. It brought me to tears, but many things do these days. My emotions are still raw. It is a wonderful book which I will now recommend to others who have just lost a loved one. It was also wonderful for you and Julia to come to Pops’ Shiva on Sunday. It meant so much to me. Aside from the fact that ...

Dear Pastor Kenny:  SPOILER ALERT: I firmly believe that due to the immutable laws of physics and the Laws of the Universe, the magic never really goes away. Here’s why: If you recall, in my last Pastoral Letter I had just been Pastorized after visiting you in Ann Arbor on this year’s version of my yearly road trip. [For readers just tuning in: Pastor Ken Wilson is my oldest friend on the planet. A capsule chronology: When I moved into my house on Gilchrist Street at the age of 5, Kenneth John Wilson was the first kid I met. He lived catercorner across ...

One block south of 8 Mile is the intersection of Gilchrist Street and Hessel Avenue Like what you read here? Help support the Not Now Silly Newsroom at Go Fund Me Dear Pastor Kenny: Remember the fort we built in the backyard behind my garage on Gilchrist? I distinctly remember scrounging some of the lumber for it from the excavation ditch that later became the Southfield Freeway. I can’t remember who was with me that day, you or Dean Donaldson, but if it was you, it’s safe to admit it. The statute of limitations on that crime has long expired. It was a pretty sweet fort, ...