For at least some of the followers of Jesus, maybe the worst day was the third one, Sunday, which for the Jews was like our Monday, with everything around them returning so completely to normal that it was impossible to believe that either his life or his death was...
So there is a powerful personal meaning to Good Friday and Easter. The followers of Jesus are invited into the journey that leads through death to new life. Personal transformation is utterly important. Without it, we remain within the world of our socialization, a...
The season of Lent beckons us to see what we are clinging to. The imagery of this season, therefore, is frequently stark. These days draw us into a wilderness in which we can more readily see what we have shaped our daily lives around: habits, practices, possessions,...
We prefer the resurrection to the cross… take a pill — try to get over hurt and anguish and injustice — exploitation — try to avoid involvement with other people and their difficulties — protect yourselves — think not of the groaning creation and sustenance for...
The feeble gospel goes back to Jesus as our model, our example, and is much concerned with moral injunctions. It sees his teaching as a fine set of ideals at which to aim. It may not do much harm but it has no power to change your life: it is a faith built in sand...
Resurrection means the life we know is not all there is to life. God may introduce surprises to all unfolding stories. Face it. We often feel bound by history, both corporate and personal. Most of us seldom use the term “fate",” but we act as if our lives are already...
Am I afraid to die? I am every time I let myself be seduced by the noisy voices of my world telling me that my “little life” is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I let these voices move to the background of my life and listen to...
Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner’s manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.
Silence is therefore important even in the life of faith and in our deepest encounter with God. We cannot always be talking, praying in words, cajoling, reasoning, or keeping up a kind of devout background music. Much of our well-meant interior religious dialogue is,...
Keeping silence is work indeed. It goes against our obsessive need to communicate, socialize, produce, achieve. It is a confrontation with our emptiness, self-deceptions, even self-image—those things we try so hard to hide under blankets of activity and sound. Silence...