Spoiler Alert: On Wednesday, I was feeling tender and pastoral and the blog that day reflected that. Today I am cranky and channeling one of the Hebrew prophets…so read further at your own risk. I would like to suggest in the strongest possible terms without actually resorting to profanity that any- and everyone of us …
In the autumn of 1986, I was given one of the most important gifts of my life. By a strange confluence of events in the lives of several other people, I was invited to serve on an international ecumenical consultation that changed the heart of ecumenical dialogue around the world…and that changed the whole structure and …
In the Christian church, Lent began on Ash Wednesday (February 18). Although penitence and penance (words most of us have come to hate without really understanding what they mean) have long been associated with Lent, it would be less emotionally laden to describe this season as one of intentional metanoia: a season about turning toward …
Rumer Godden’s extraordinary book, In This House of Brede, is about an enclosed community of Benedictine nuns in England in the middle of the 20th century. Early in the story, a financial crisis (caused by the impetuous choice of a previous leader) threatens to overset the abbey. The newly-elected Abbess realizes she needs to act …
Many years ago, I discovered that Orthodox Jews have a prayer for every activity and event in the day, a short prayer of gratitude that acknowledges the wonder and grace of the unfolding moment: a prayer for awakening, for rising from bed, for washing hands, drinking water, preparing food, eating food, dressing. Literally everything. This …
Reminder: This is the last week to get an entry in the Lughnasadh Give-Away. This has been the easiest give-away ever since I don’t have a single entry for the drawing! Send the blog information to a friend. If he or she clicks through to read the whole blog, you could win a set of …
Our daughter grew up as a Preacher’s Kid Squared, so she heard her father and me talk more than once at the dinner table about weddings and marriages, and from a very young age she heard us discuss the kinds of questions we asked the couples who came for pre-marital counseling: questions about values, about …
…and speaking of trust, what do we do with disappointment? There was a stage in my life when I maintained two huge gardens: a flower garden outside the parsonage which was our home in western Massachusetts, and a vegetable garden a mile away in an area offered to residents of the town by a local …