It strikes me today that the liturgy of Ash Wednesday teaches something that nearly everyone can agree on. Whether you are part of a church or not, whether you believe today or your doubt, whether you are a Christian or an atheist or an agnostic or a so-called “none”...
Reflecting...has led me to think that hope and disappointment are part of the same faith perspective. Without hope rooted in a vision of possibility, there would not be the experience of disappointment. As the saying goes, “Expect little, and you will be much less...
One thing healthy religion does is challenge us. I don’t mean the strident castigations of the street preacher or even the social justice rally-er. Great traditions excel at the soft challenge, the friendly nudge, issued predominantly through the mode of story....
Jesus is not telling us to submit to evil, but to refuse to oppose it on its own terms. We are not to let the opponent dictate the methods of our opposition. He is urging us to transcend both passivity and violence by finding a third way, one that is at once assertive...
Imagine the Olympic Games without music. Bleak. Recall moments of the Olympic Games with music—competition is transcended, common humanity and achievements are celebrated. I captured the following moment while watching 2004 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, televised from...
When people are trained to appreciate the art of music for its own sake, they also want the best music for sacred purposes because they know the sublime sense that grips them when they hear good compositions well rendered. Such music enables people, in fact, to...
Popular music is engineered by people in the entertainment industry, and sales are the arbiter of success (hence the enormous sums earned by the writers of often-played commercials)… At the other end of the power spectrum is great religious music. Here the texts deal...
Whether rich or poor, male or female…our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and to...
A wise friend had told me that when his heart is unable to worship in a given moment or situation, for whatever reason, he looks around the congregation to find a person most engaged in worship and begins to pray, “Lord, let that person’s worship be mine.” At times...
The corporate worship of the Church is not simply that of an assembly of individuals who believe the same things, and therefore unite in doing the same things. It is real in its own right; an action transcending and embracing all the separate souls taking part in it.