I was never a big fan of gravy. When I was a kid, I preferred butter on my mashed potatoes and watched it dissolve into a tiny lake atop my spuds. I was also not fond of gravy for another reason. It was a maddening moniker hung on me as in "Davey Gravy;" disrespectful and not representative of my true genius.  

As I've grown older, however, I find myself warming toward the idea of gravy. It hearkens back to a time in life where my entire family--all six of us, and even seven when my grandpa was living at our house--could sit around a small kitchen table and eat meat and potatoes slathered in gravy and feel guiltless about doing so. My father's perfectly seasoned gravy is largely what gave our food its flavor. Gravy was as close as we came to exotic on an otherwise ordinary table. It was as spicy as we got. And, as hard as it would have been for me to believe when I was young, I have actually become fond of the nickname Gravy.

As far as gleanings are concerned, I tend to be a synthesizer at heart. I gather a bit from this source, then I remember what somebody else said about the topic and I use that, and soon I'm not sure whose thoughts I am channeling. So some of the things you will see here are gleaned from my own mind as in sermons; some pieces will be gleaned from church or world happenings; some things will be what somebody else said about a topic. Wherever it has been gleaned from, it will reflect God's perspective, our struggles, and most importantly, God's forgiveness offered in Jesus that makes us more than conquerors. All of this with special note to theology, counseling and human behavior, linguistics and language, music and worship, and anything else that comes to my liberal arts styled mind.

With those things in mind, welcome to Gravy's Gleanings. I will attempt to serve up generous portions of gleanings to think about, slathered in the gravy of God's Grace. Gravy's gleanings may not always seem as exotic and spicy as you can find elsewhere, but they do provide solid spiritual nourishment. To quote my dearly departed father, "They're good for you, schnookie." And who knows. As time passes, you may actually become fond of them as well.