I was driving the other day. The August sun was pounding on the car. Everything felt heavy. Things were moving slow and the traffic noise was incredibly intrusive, like it was from some other world. How dare this awful noise break into my world, into my inner world, into the place where I think I…
What you will notice first is the people. Look at them. See how they gather together in this place. Apparently this gathering ritual is a thing people do. And they are so at ease with it, gliding between the pews, exchanging greetings, having conversations before the service, waving across the room to their friends, sinking…
Some say we humans are made at the moment of conception. But I don’t agree. That’s when our bodies begin to be made, yes. But our souls are knit together in tragic and heroic moments, sometimes years before we are born, when the messages of our families are formed in the crucible of human experience.…
Sunday, 22 March in the season of Lent My God, my God, why have I forsaken You? Why have Your words, echoed through the ancient and holy Church, turned to babel in my ears? Why has my heart turned to stone? Did You harden it, as You hardened the heart of Pharaoh, for some mysterious…
I read recently that men are statistically more likely than women to be narcissists. The story was in the Washington Post and quoted an article from the journal of the American Psychological Association, so it seems to be a valid study. My own half century of interacting with men and women certainly does not represent…
When my college roommate graduated he left me two things. The first was his campus job delivering The Lariat, which is the Baylor University newspaper. Rob said it was the best campus job because they paid you three hours of work to deliver the paper, but you could do it in an hour and a…
An edited (and somewhat sanitized) version of this story was published by the Christian Century in 2017 with the title: “A story about finding a new story.” I could tell you the story of how I found Carl in New Orleans, but it wouldn’t do you any good. Carl moves his shop whenever the mood…
Monday, 2 March in the season of Lent We eucharistic visitors have no truck with theology or philosophy when we are sent out into the world with our small box filled with the consecrated elements of our shared communion. The box in which the bread and wine are carried has a handle on the top.…
Wednesday, 25 February in the season of Lent Sometimes I visit Covenant Baptist Church on a Sunday morning. Not often. A few times a year. It’s always nice. I’m happy to see my old friends and they are happy to see me. I always experience powerful feelings there. How would you describe feeling very happy…
Sunday, 22 February in the season of Lent. In the Episcopal prayers and liturgy spoken during the Eucharist can be found this delightful paragraph: At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home. This fragile earth.…