I’ve been living with a word that helps me: Relinquishment. It’s not the same as resignation. We are not talking about a droopy, “I-couldn’t-care-less-what-happens” outlook.
“Resignation,” as writer Catherine Marshall notes, “lies down in the dust of a godless universe and steels itself for the worst.” Relinquishment, on the other hand, says, I will believe that God has up a divine celestial sleeve some resources I may not see.
Read MoreAt first, I wasn’t quite sure that that three-letter word warranted much of a place in my everyday praying.
Read MoreLike everyone else does, Jesus will start life as a baby.
To be a human is to be vulnerable. To be a baby is to be even more so. But in Jesus God becomes human. Truly vulnerable.
Read MoreI learned something recently about newborns. After delivery, after the shock of being thrust from the warmth of the womb, babies reach a stage where they spend about an hour in what doctors call “quiet alert.”
Read MoreEver wonder why the world isn’t in better condition? Why we human beings aren’t better than we are? The last Sunday before Advent, also known as Christ the King Sunday, or the Reign of Christ, attempts an answer.
The celebration, always the last Sunday before Advent, is a relative newcomer to the church calendar. Early in the twentieth century setting apart a Sunday in the church year became a way for believers to remember who is king, the true Sovereign, a way to refresh our convictions about his strong hand. But there’s something jarring and odd about how that story is framed.
Read MoreSometimes the ancient writers can speak with surprising relevance. As I work on my book-length account of my rediscovery of the Trinity, and as I delve into my sketchy memories of my earliest years, Augustine, the fourth-century African bishop, has been helping me.
I’ve been amazed at how like mine his struggles were.
Read MoreOne early evening, years ago, I sat at home, working at my desk in my makeshift office. Outside my window the sun lit up the yard’s maple and elm trees and made the lawn a luminous green.
But none of that pried my eyes off the project on my desk.
What did it was my then-five-year-old daughter, Bekah. She stood on the grass with thin arms stretched toward the sun, her eyes squinting, her chestnut hair shimmering. Then she ran and skipped and twirled around the yard, laughing with abandon. I could barely hear her through the window, but I could see her clearly.
Read MoreI recently came across an interview with Bob Dylan from 1977, when the singer-songwriter was 36. Dylan is usually more profound in his song lyrics than his interviews. But something he said this time struck me: “We’re all wind and dust anyway.” … I think Dylan was hinting at more than he knew.
Read MorePlaying before a crowd of 80 in the college auditorium left me a little anxious.
We were all a bit nervous.
Read MoreHere’s a question: what does God, believed by religious traditions the world over to have had a hand in the miracle of human birth, have to do with our own entrance into life? I ask it now for myself, six decades after my first days of exploring the world. My just celebrating a birthday has made me even more reflective and curious.
Read MoreI’ve learned a new word from the Internet: Doomer.
The term applies to someone so taken by gloomy fears that their mindset is saturated with catastrophe. A doomer thinks that everything is going to heck in a handbasket, that extinction is nigh. That political calamity or global apocalypse is right around the corner. (I know: some days it seems that way!)
Read MoreFollowing a long tradition in my corner of the Christian world, my parish has just celebrated Pentecost. One of the readings for the day presented a jarring and stirring scene. The account puts off some of us, excites others, leaves still others with questions.
Read MoreJames K. A. Smith describes a scene I like from the TV series The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry is talking to one of his employees who’s struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable that he thinks will help: This guy’s walking down the street when he falls down a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.
Read MoreWe would rather look away from the suffering at the heart of this day. We would rather look away from anyone in pain. That’s all the more true when it comes to the shame and degradation of the Cross.
The priest at a North Carolina Catholic church, on a Good Friday some years ago, placed an array of Lenten crosses, draped all in black, out in front of his little church.
Not long after, Father Ed received a call from the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce: “Look, Reverend,” the representative said, “we've been getting complaints about those crosses. …”
Read MoreWhat do we do when we hear reports of a maternity hospital shelled, a boarding school for the visually impaired bombed, a bus shuttling orphaned children from danger blocked, families huddled in subways for weeks, weeping couples separating at the border? What spiritual response makes sense when we see the faces—tear-streaked, defiant, afraid? When our screens and devices deliver constant news of the miseries and horrors of war?
Read MoreAlmighty God, who sees all those who dwell on earth, we pray for the people of Ukraine today. Have mercy on those who now suffer the miseries and terrors of war. Give peace to the anxious, reassurance to the children, healing to the injured, and your comfort to those who mourn. …
Read MoreTwenty years ago I had the privilege of spending hours and hours in the archives of the collected papers of the late priest and author Henri Nouwen. The book that resulted from my compiling and editing, Turn My Mourning into Dancing, has not only helped unnumbered people, it has gained even more compelling significance during the pandemic.
Read MoreHow to begin a day—knowing its potential uncertainties, and dreaming about the possibilities?
The Book of Common Prayer includes a wonderfully simple entreaty. I’ve been saying it as the day gets going. I’ve read it so often that I can recite it without it in front of me. … I get struck all the time with how full of meaning it seems for this instant’s ambiguities.
Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash
Read MoreSome time ago I jolted awake at 2 am from a gripping dream.
Read MoreYears ago, I visited a church member, a surgeon, who’d been hospitalized. He was quite sick.
During our conversation he mentioned his hands. He held them up, hands at that time gnarled from the effects of arthritis, but he remembered how they once had made a difference, helped heal.
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