How to Love God
The words “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One” have been familiar to me for longer than I can remember. Of course, I tend to remember them better in the original Hebrew that I learned to chant as soon as I could talk, and Jesus seems to have learned a different […]
Cutting Our Losses
If your hand makes you sin, cut it off! Better that you should be maimed but obtain eternal life, rather than keep both hands and go to hell [Gei-Hinnom], to unquenchable fire!* As someone who doesn’t believe in hell, or in the kind of God who would send people there, what do I do with […]
Not Afraid to Ask
“We went to the junkyard,” Marguerite said, “and Monty was full of questions.” At seven, Monty has not yet learned to keep his questions quiet so as not to bother the adults. His wise old aunt takes him on some kind of adventure each week to give his house-bound parents and introverted older brother some […]
The Jesus We Have
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”* When I read that question, I am filled with tenderness towards my past self, a self so broken-hearted that I was contemplating walking away from Jesus. Like the followers in John’s gospel, I […]
