What do we do when we hear reports of a maternity hospital shelled, a boarding school for the visually impaired bombed, a bus shuttling orphaned children from danger blocked, families huddled in subways for weeks, weeping couples separating at the border? What spiritual response makes sense when we see the faces—tear-streaked, defiant, afraid? When our screens and devices deliver constant news of the miseries and horrors of war?
Read MoreAlmighty God, who sees all those who dwell on earth, we pray for the people of Ukraine today. Have mercy on those who now suffer the miseries and terrors of war. Give peace to the anxious, reassurance to the children, healing to the injured, and your comfort to those who mourn. …
Read MoreTwenty years ago I had the privilege of spending hours and hours in the archives of the collected papers of the late priest and author Henri Nouwen. The book that resulted from my compiling and editing, Turn My Mourning into Dancing, has not only helped unnumbered people, it has gained even more compelling significance during the pandemic.
Read MoreHow to begin a day—knowing its potential uncertainties, and dreaming about the possibilities?
The Book of Common Prayer includes a wonderfully simple entreaty. I’ve been saying it as the day gets going. I’ve read it so often that I can recite it without it in front of me. … I get struck all the time with how full of meaning it seems for this instant’s ambiguities.
Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash
Read MoreSome time ago I jolted awake at 2 am from a gripping dream.
Read MoreYears ago, I visited a church member, a surgeon, who’d been hospitalized. He was quite sick.
During our conversation he mentioned his hands. He held them up, hands at that time gnarled from the effects of arthritis, but he remembered how they once had made a difference, helped heal.
Read MoreGrowing up in Southern California, I saw a poster with a line that I’ve never forgotten. It grew out of the late 1960s activism surrounding racial justice. The poster carried a photo of a plaintive-faced African American child, an urban neighborhood his backdrop.
The caption: “God doesn’t make junk.”
That statement, while true, is a bit of an understatement.
Read MoreA report of a late-night conversation between two British luminaries nudged my spiritual life a stride forward. And deepened my appreciation for belief in God as Trinity.
As the story goes, J. R. R. Tolkien ofThe Lord of the Rings fame had been talking with C. S. Lewis ofThe Chronicles of Narniafame.
Read MoreOnce, leading a retreat for a church group in the rugged terrain of Texas hill country, I taught about listening prayer—the practice of leaving space in our talking with God for guidance or new insight.
And then I gave this assignment: For the next ten or fifteen minutes, I said, go out into the open spaces or trails outside our building, or find a quiet corner here in the retreat center, and pray this simple phrase. …
Read MoreWhen my youngest son was two years old, chronic ear infections filled his ears with fluid, dulled his hearing, and slowed his mastery of speech. Micah wanted to talk, but a lack of words constantly frustrated his attempts. This made his part in our family’s nightly bedside prayers a trial.
Read MorePromising vaccines--amazingly effective and quickly rolled out—showed up like a long-yearned-for spring. Yet, for all the astonishing good they have done, the deaths headed off, the layer of protection they offer, they haven’t returned life to normal.
Read MoreOf course prayer makes a difference. Or does it? I ask the question because of something I remember hearing in the church I grew up attending: “Prayer doesn’t change things; it changes us.” Is it true that prayer doesn’t—cannot—change “things”?
Read MoreI think our world would be better off if we spent less time arguing and more time telling stories.
Read MoreWhile it may just be a four-letter word—and a single syllable at that—self carries a lot of freight. Especially when linked with other words: Self-aware, self-worth, selfless. On the negative side we speak of someone as self-centered, self-destructive, selfish.
Read MoreIt’s an odd word, but I instantly understood why someone coined it: Doomscrolling is a new term for our tendency (temptation?) to scroll through bad news on our digital devices, even though that news is disheartening and often depressing.
Read MoreMost people are intimidated by how complicated the talk of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit seems. But I’m more struck by how the conviction can be a stomach punch to spiritual ease and shallowness.
Read MoreI’ve come to recognize lately how drawn I am to ideas that soar, to beliefs that somehow make the heart feel larger. I’ve dedicated a fair amount of time lately, after all, to writing about the Trinity, or flights of prayer, or reaching out to an immense God.
Read MoreFor some time I’ve been pondering the Trinity. Nothing like a huge topic! And it’s a belief some find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for. Isn’t the doctrine all about some archaic and esoteric meanderings of idle minds?
Read MoreMight remembering prayerfully, calling the past to mind in the presence of a loving and healing divine presence make us more whole, more fully ourselves?
Read MoreWhen I was a child, an unlikely story captured my imagination. I loved reading about a man marooned on an island, a young reader’s edition of Robinson Crusoe. I say unlikely because the story is not only centuries removed (the original was published in 1719), the novel describes a world foreign to a child growing up in suburban Southern California.
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