Bewilderment
We enter this week before Christmas telling the story, beginning with these simple words: This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.* I am struck by how ordinary (i.e., messy) is the start of the life of a Messiah. Messy in that it is not what we expect, not all that tidy and neat, and […]
Blessing of the Well – Oct. 24, 2022
If you standat the edgeof this blessingand call downinto it,you will hearyour wordsreturn to you. If you lean in close,you will hearthis blessinggive the storyof your lifeback to you. Quiet your voice.Quiet your judgment.Quiet the wayyou always tellyour storyto yourself.…. –Jan Richardson, from “Blessing of the Well” in Circle of Grace, p. 109
Doubt and Trust
As I write this, it is still Lent, and in the locked room of my imagination Jesus is still headed towards the cross, and not yet walking through walls to join the cowering disciples who watched their hopes die along with him on the cross.* Instead of replying “He is risen, indeed” to the victorious […]
Names or Numbers? – July 27, 2021
“To write a story is an act of Naming; in reading about a protagonist I can grow along with, I am more named. And we live in a world which would reduce us to our social security numbers. Area codes, zip codes, credit card codes, all take precedence over our names. Our signatures already mean […]
