When I think of that modest room lit by a receptive heart even before the messenger appearedI wonder if she was dreaming of her expected lifewith Josephas many girls do when they are betrothed.But thena shift in the room’s energyand a benediction uttered out of the silence,not much of a preamble to the predictionof pregnancy and prophecy landingsmack dab not only into her storybut her … Continue reading The Big Yes
She was an ordinary girl. We remind ourselves of it every year at this time. We know nothing about Mary except that she was pledged to be married to Joseph. Later on we get a few hints about her personality, and there is one clue even in the annunciation—the encounter with the angel Gabriel. When he told Mary that God was pleased with her and … Continue reading Same Song, Next Verse
He never said, “Be safe.”He saw what they did with the life-giving Law,its walls nowclosing in on soulsmeant to roam free. Perhaps his tears over the citywere not for all her wanderings,but for her fear,her lack of wonder,her contentment with the small,tame worldof scrupulous obedience.He shook her at her core,tumbled the Temple,untamed and tremblingwith wild rage.His love, uncaged,awakens us,invites us out to wildernesswhere questions lurk,beyond … Continue reading Into the Wild
The cousins got to play together once a year, when their parents met in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. It was a long trek of a few days each way for Mary and Joseph’s family. Jesus was eager to meet up with John, so he had to be patient as helped his mother keep track of his younger siblings. The boys were different … Continue reading The Boys in the River
I have a spiritual practice that helps me internalize the Scriptures and the ways of God. I imagine being one of the characters or a bystander in a biblical story, and I spin out the story as I see it. It doesn’t have to be theologically “correct,” although I try to keep it plausible. I simply spend time wondering what it was like to … Continue reading Saved on the Road
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what … Continue reading Advent 2021: Mary
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 raw material … Continue reading Advent 2021: Joseph
I 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 a good … Continue reading Advent: Elizabeth
In Advent we realize that the birth of Jesus is part of a bigger story, thousands of years long and eternal in scope. It includes the prophecies of people like Isaiah, who lived 2800 years ago, centuries before Jesus appeared on the scene. He was an ordinary man whom God tapped to be a prophet in Judah. Judah was a small nation with mighty nations … Continue reading Advent 2021: Isaiah
The sins of the fathers are tenacious unless there has been a reckoning, a washing in the river to a new awareness, a new name reminding him of that long night of struggle, grasping desperately to the past and finally letting go, with a blessing, no less. Ten sons had learned their lessons well, living into a new iteration of deception and manipulation, greed, competition. … Continue reading Seed of Israel
saint sinner seeker 