We say of ourselves we are divided. It certainly looks and feels that way most days. What can being church mean at times like these? It means when the world says division, we say “body.” St. Paul gives us that word and image to understand how we ought to live with one...
“One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate...
Remember the starry night, the camels, and the three curious travelers? Remember the question that launched them? “Where is the child?” It’s a good question to lead us into 2022. Life with God is an adventure, at least it should be – a seeking, finding, offering...
“ You remember the Defiant Ones, the two convicts shackled to one another escape and fall into a ditch of dirty water, and one of them almost made it to the top, but can’t because his mate is still down there, and he’s shackled to him, and he slithers down. The only...
Singing is what I hear when Mary and Elizabeth come together in a doorway on a hill. Maybe their bellies bump when they embrace. Old and pregnant meets young and pregnant. Old and faithful and young and faithful together, the best kind of church. Each woman is a verse...
John called people who do sincere rituals insincerely snakes. He couldn’t get away with that these days but I understand what he means. The insincere were joining the sincere that day at the river to be baptized. They came to that moment motivated by something beyond...
As a way through the inherent difficulty of following Jesus, some are suggesting that the followers of Jesus be “neutral.” They want to make Jesus, and therefore themselves, more palatable for the world. I understand the temptation. They want a Jesus who does not...
In 1863, the same year as the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Abraham Lincoln called for the last Thursday in November to be set aside as a day for “Thanksgiving and Praise.” In part, this proclamation was birthed because of the letter writing campaign of a...
When we make God our first love, God directs that love to the horizontal dimension. To people. Any vertical expression of love for God can be judged by the quality of our horizontal expression of love. That is why Dorothy Day said, “I really only love God as much as I...
Naomi and Ruth’s undoing eventually became the circumstances for their Hallelujah. Life, love and abundance came to them but not before death, dislocation and hunger. We love our hallelujahs but not our undoings. But remember, God is present in both. And God deserves...
