Smashing Convention
Of course, I had to read the recent NYT article “Kung Fu Nuns of Nepal Smash Convention.” It described how a group of Buddhist nuns are challenging longstanding traditional concepts about what women can and can’t do by practicing Kung Fu, which gives them “inner confidence” and readies them to “take care of others during crises.” And they […]
Questions in the Dark
My Lenten practice this year is to notice what questions arise in the dark, either in my dreams or wakeful times. Sleep seems to filter out the trivia, and I discover what my real questions are. Some arise from worries, of course. Others involve long-forgotten incidents, odd dream encounters, and shards of conversation that I […]
Pick Up Your Cross – Mar. 3, 2023
“It took me quite awhile—years, actually—to realize that Jesus is not inviting me to be crucified. I’m just volunteering to pick up my cross and carry it. Maybe not with grace or even steadiness, moving ahead under its weight. And it’s my cross, not the cross Jesus was compelled to bear… I suspect that in […]
Luminous Transformation
Transfiguration Sunday. Can it be that Lent is right on the horizon? The lectionary readings have so quickly, perhaps too quickly, punctuated the wondrous intensities of Advent, Jesus’ birth, early epiphanies and now transfiguration. Transfiguration is the stunning summit epiphany* before turning toward Calvary. It is a brief, loaded account, without equal. Jesus goes to a new […]