Merry Christmas!
If you happen to have been here Christmas eve—I was, I go to church a lot—you might recall that yesterday’s readings and pageant were all about shepherds, angels, and the baby in the manger. The familiar—if peculiar—story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is a tale of wonder and courage and extraordinary generosity on the part of … Read the rest
Continue reading "The Stable and the Supernova" »It’s the tears that really get to me in this story. Everything that the woman does is unexpected: the bold entry into the house of a Pharisee, the weeping, the anointing, the contact with the rabbi’s feet, the loosened hair. The reality and the symbolism of each of these actions is quite extraordinary. Even more so if we … Read the rest
Continue reading "Tears of Pain and Power" »For several days last week, I was driving around with a kind of scary black garbage bag in the back of my car. And the bag got a bit scarier every day that it stayed there, because it was full of damp used towels. Towels that came from a service of footwashing. And the feet belonged to the … Read the rest
Continue reading "Take Up Your Towel" »Some years ago I embarked on a long retreat with a new spiritual director, and at our first session he asked me how and how often I pray. Seems like a reasonable question for a spiritual director to ask, but somehow it made me feel a bit like I do when the dentist asks me how often I … Read the rest
Continue reading "Impressed with Prayer" »A few years ago an insurance company ran
a television ad touting how their products save money. My husband John and I don’t watch a lot of TV at home—we kind of got out of the habit when we lived in
Nicaragua—so its not often that I actually know what the popular commercials are. But this one captured … Read the rest
There’s a book about Jesuit prayer practice—a personal favorite—called “Sleeping with Bread.” It takes its title from a WWII era story, when thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But still, many of these children could … Read the rest
Continue reading "Deep Hunger & True Treasure" »“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live … Read the rest
Continue reading "Loving the Questions" »
Last week I was in northern Michigan visiting an old friend who lives in Leelanau County, which is at the tip of a peninsula extending into Lake Michigan alongside Grand Traverse Bay. Its really beautiful country, and among its many charmsare miles of sandy beaches where amateur geologists search out a kind of fossilized corral known as petosky … Read the rest
Jeremiah 1:4-9
Psalm 84
Philippians 4:4-9
Matt. 9:35-38
And so, deacons and priests in waiting, the day has come. The day you dreamed of, worked hard for, maybe ran even harder from; the day you worried about and rejoiced in. In a few Spirit-filled minutes you will take vows that nobody can possibly fulfill but for the grace of our … Read the rest
Continue reading "Think About These Things. Really." »
Did you know that “truthiness” was Merriam Webster’s “word of the year” for 2006? Various Internet sources define “truthiness” as an argument or assertion that claims to be true, without regard to evidence. Faux newscaster Stephen Colbert coined the word in the pilot episode of his political satire The Colbert Report, and the truth became—well—history.
Which leads me … Read the rest
Continue reading "Telling the Truthiness" »
