Lead me not into temptation
I already know the road all too well
Lead me not into temptation
I can find it all by myself

On a whim, I riffed this chorus into a recent sermon from Luke’s telling of the temptation of Jesus. In the moment, I remembered the words and could hear the gospel piano, the light and soulful tune, and the remarkable voice just like it emerged from my nineteen-ninety-something radio. Couldn’t recall the singer, and would have guessed wrong if I tried. Didn’t matter. On the fly, it seemed like a good light moment to slide into the telling of how, in moments of weakness and best intentions, temptation can lure us to the point of at least a momentary no return. Honestly, we do know that road all too well.

I did a little surfing and found that the singer was a young lady named Lari White. (I would have guessed Carlene Carter and lost my turn on Country Music Jeopardy.) Born and raised right here in Pinellas County singing with the White Family Gospel Singers; how about that? She won one of the first musical reality shows and parlayed it into brief, but solid career as a Nashville performer and producer. Sadly, she died at 52 with cancer, leaving a husband and three kids. Perhaps her most odd role was a brief one most of us will remember. She was the young lady who met Tom Hanks at the door in Castaway’s last scene; package delivered and leaving him literally at the crossroads.

You might notice that my sometimes weekly blog has a new heading. Money Talks and First Things have made room for “The Prompter.” It’s a name that needs, as Ricky Ricardo might say, “Some ‘splainin'”. So here goes.

Soren Kierkegaard was a mid-1800’s Danish author, poet, theologian, and existential philosopher. Old Soren’s ideas have influenced modern thought more than most of his ilk and era. But my favorite SK pondering has lately fallen out of favor. Frankly, it has been forgotten, devalued and overthrown at the individualist insistence of modern churches and their worshippers. Yet, I suppose if he felt the need to opine about this way back in 18-something, it might not be an entirely new development. Here it is in a nutshell.