As we plunge into Lent, settling into patterns of prayer and fasting and giving to others, the lectionary points us to the reason for it all. Each week until Easter, I’ll be musing on the Sunday readings: specifically, through the lens of the first (Old Testament) readings. Read in turn, these take us on a […]
ASH WEDNESDAY: It’s time to get clean
(Traducción en español al final) My son was the youngest and newest member of the local Peewee football league, and as such he sat warming the bench in his spanking-white uniform while his teammates slogged through the mud. It was a cold and rainy day but the game was exciting, and we all cheered as […]
JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU (EVEN WHEN I DOUBT)
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a crowd, due to COVID. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like. Maybe that’s why it stands out to me as I read through the early chapters of Mark’s gospel: people are everywhere. Jostling, asking, listening, questioning, pleading for help. They crowd into Jesus’ house so he […]
HOW TO HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD: The Example of Samuel
“The word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Samuel 3:1). I feel like that sometimes. Lord, where are you? Why don’t you speak? I have so many needs… I need to hear from you! “The word of the Lord was rare” — that was in the early days of the […]
2nd SUNDAY OF ADVENT: PREPARE AND PROCLAIM!
Christmas preparations are looking very different for me this year. Normally, I’d be baking and planning parties and strolling with friends through winter-lit gardens. But I find myself staying home to avoid unsafe contact and searching out COVID test sites, investigating state travel restrictions and counting isolation days. Because what kind of Christmas will it […]
1st SUNDAY OF ADVENT: WATCH!
“You be the lookout,” I told my little brother. “Yell the second you see the car!” My parents had gone for the day, leaving me in charge. And now we were scrambling to finish our chores and get the house in order before they returned, bringing our cousins with them. Only when the last thing […]
A PSALM FOR GIVING THANKS
The signs are everywhere right now: “Grateful”, the word spelled out in fancy type, embellished with flowers, sparkles, or even gold leaf. I almost hit one with my grocery cart this morning, rounding the corner past a woman who, like me, had left her Thanksgiving shopping to the last minute. “Grateful … hmmpf!” she said, […]
PATIENCE: A VIRTUE WORTH PRACTICING
“Patience is a virtue . . . you get it from your kids.” “God give me patience . . . and I want it now!” We laugh about patience, joke about it even, but how many of us work at getting it? We treat it as though it’s something one is born with, and […]
PRAYER IN DESPERATE TIMES
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. Would you consider prayer a desperate measure?” I wasn’t expecting that question at the start of this interview on “prayer in desperate times”! Ben Akers, who is Director of Formed at the Augustine Institute in Denver, invited me to talk on Formed Now! about how the Psalms teach us to pray when times are rough. The […]
HAVE FAITH IN THE FIRE: Take a Lesson from Job
“Hope in God.” “Have Faith.” “Hang in there — God’s got this!” For real? Are these phrases (which I hear so often now, with so much distress in the streets) — are these pious phrases just “opium for the masses,” as Karl Marx famously declared of religion? When I can’t get a break; when my […]
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