You may have been reminded of another popular book while reflecting on the vision of God's open-ended, creative, and lively adventure and on your own role as a partner with God in healing the world. Many persons have found a greater sense of meaning through reading...
02219 – A Friend Who Cares
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can...
01949 – Trust Me to Carry It for You
So the line had stuck in my head. “Sex,” I was pretty sure, meant whether you were a boy or girl, and “sin” made Tante Jans very angry, but what the two together meant I could not imagine. And so, seated next to Father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked,...
01881 – Examining Big Questions about Our Existence
Socrates famously declared that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’ It is one of the most quoted classical sayings outside the Bible, but it is followed less than it is quoted. And if Socrates is correct, it would mean that many people, even highly educated...
01843 – God, the Artist
God, the Artist Thou takest the pen– and the lines dance. Thou takest the flute– and the notes shimmer. Thou takest the brush– and the colours sing. So all things have meaning and beauty in that space beyond time where Thou art. How, then, can I hold back anything...
01812 – Survival: a Gift & a Charge
The friend standing next to me at the firing predictor was torn to pieces by the bomb that left me unscathed. That night I cried out to God for the first time: "My God, where are you?" And the question "Why am I not dead too?" has haunted me ever since. Why are you...
01763 – What Does Our Framing Story Tell Us?
If it [our framing story] tells us that the purpose of life is for individuals or nations to accumulate an abundance of possessions and to experience the maximum amount of pleasure during the maximum number of minutes of our short lives, then we will have little...
01653 – We All Need Hope
We all need hope. No sparkling promises or wishes. No well laid intentions or plans. Hope. Four letters. Four letters that carry the weight of our whole world and all of our life hidden in the depth of their meaning. Whether we are waiting on a check to arrive, a door...
01582 – Death Does Not Have the Last Word
Brothers and sisters, if we don’t believe that every crucifixion—war, poverty, torture, hunger—can somehow be redeemed, who of us would not be angry, cynical, hopeless? No wonder Western culture seems so skeptical today. It all doesn’t mean anything, it’s not going...
01483 – What Did Jesus Mean?
To read the gospels in the spirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said. We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange deeds and words. He intended to reveal the Father to us, and to show that he is the only-begotten Son of the...