- Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Paintings, Quotations, Reflections
The Fleeting Light
Where are the voices crying out, not for agreement with a doctrine or assent to a particular teaching, but for taking virile and perhaps physically fatal responsibility for one’s own reaction to the evil we see around us? The voices that do cry out do so in an attempt to persuade people to agree with them, or to at least debate with them about their position. Who speaks words of comfort for those who cannot and will not trust any of those clamoring for followers? What are the once-faithful and now-bereft to think, to do, to believe? The road to self-knowledge does not pass through faith. But only through the…
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Spiritual Busywork
In an old Seinfeld episode, Jerry and his pals attend a party. The host is known for assigning jobs to his guests, as in “Jerry, you’re in charge of the stereo. Make sure no one messes with the volume.” Or “Kramer, you’re in charge of the coat pile. Whenever someone arrives, make sure they put their coats on the proper bed in the spare room.” The guests take their responsibilities seriously, and it takes them some time to realize that the host’s ploy is simply to keep them out of mischief while they’re in his apartment. I can remember in my Protestant days how the leadership of every church used…
- Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Lectio Divina, Prayers, Reflections
Slight Return
I was a gangly skint-kneed sliver of a boy of eleven when I became a Christian. The term we used then was “getting saved,” and I got saved at a summertime Vacation Bible School worship service to which I had been invited by my best friend. Since that first terrifying moment when I stepped out into the aisle to make my way down front, feeling as if an invisible hand were pushing me along, my path has looped around to some interesting landmarks. I started out at the Church of the Nazarene, then faded into twilight in my teen years as I visited but never committed to a number of…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Lectio Divina, Prayers, Reflections
Lourdes, Lourdes
I’ve avoided writing about the current health scare for the same reason that I’ve avoided talking about it at length. There are too many sources of disparate, conflicting information, almost none of whom I trust, and I lack both the intellectual rigor and the sort of personality that delights in wading through all this dismal stuff. I suppose my stance on this situation is akin to my grandmother’s. I remember one day in the Seventies when a young plumber tried to engage her in a conversation about diet and heart disease. He presented all sorts of facts and figures in an evangelist’s voice, his eyes shining in his earnest face.…