Advent 3: Annunciation to Joseph Steady, old boy. You can believe your eyes. Admit it. This is not unfamiliar, this mystic hope that shimmered in the shadows that day as the sawdust settled under your restless feet. You can believe what her ears heard, what she told you, how the messenger revealed the mystery’s shape hidden within her innate devotion. You can do this. The … Continue reading
Advent 2: ElizabethI couldn’t tell you when it went absent without leave but one day I noticed it was gone. The last shred of possibility slipped out the door. You adjust. The sadness becomes mortar for a wall just high enough to keep the dream from getting in finding its old place where it fit in so well until it didn’t. We resigned ourselves to … Continue reading
In Isaiah’s time they thought him crazed for saying things were gloomy when they weren’t. Their bellies full, their fortunes had been made and regularly sacrifices burnt to make a show of opening to God while turning a deaf ear to those whose cries were heard in heaven, many lacking food and suffering the cost of rich men’s lives. The prophet saw the thin veneer … Continue reading Advent 1: Isaiah
Prayer. Over the course of my life, that word and practice has meant different things. At first, we learn rote prayers. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” The Lord’s Prayer. Prayers before meals. Growing up, our before-meal prayer went like this: “Father, bless this food we take, and bless us all, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” Our … Continue reading The Miner
Often in Christian conversations and sermons these days, we are told to “stand up for your faith.” It seems like a rallying cry to protect Christianity from an onslaught of perceived threats to moral purity, to individual expressions of faith, to the right to refuse service on the basis of religion, etc. The stance is one of defensiveness. Yet I don’t hear Jesus advocating “taking … Continue reading Stand Up, for What?
When I retired at the beginning of 2022, I did not picture myself sitting in a chair looking down at the deep end of a pool, blowing the whistle to keep kids from running on the pool deck. Let me back up. Last summer I helped out at a week of family camp a mere 20 miles from home. My grandkids’ other grandma graciously agreed … Continue reading And Now for Something Completely Different
Find a neighborhood that needs your song. Perch high so they cannot resist looking up, out of their tamping troubles. Pierce the pall with your urgent epistle, your scarlet missive, your flagrant yes! this! Perhaps one or two will allow you to unpin their hopes from nearby moorings, let them fly to you where you will gather them, fling them wide, your tune unfiltered, sweetest … Continue reading Cardinal
When is the last time someone asked you how you feel? These days we all want to talk about what we think, but we habitually ignore the feelings that are often driving our opinions and our actions. We are created as whole beings, with bodies, emotions, intellect, senses and so much more. Yet for some reason the idea that emotions are bad has infiltrated popular … Continue reading Do Not Fear Your Feelings
This writing refers to two pieces of legislation recently supported and signed into law by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. Senate File 538 prohibits medical personnel from providing gender-altering treatment for minors even if they have their parents’ permission. Senate File 482 requires transgender youth to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their biology at birth, providing separate facilities only with parents’ permission. … Continue reading What if…?
I sat on one of the folding chairs lining the mini-gym at the Y on a Saturday morning in January. First and second grade boys were earnestly enacting their version of basketball, my grandson among them. They’re not bad, considering their age. The leniency about traveling violations and a rule against stealing the ball enable them to enjoy the game as aggressively as their little … Continue reading Blood Connections
saint sinner seeker 