Sometimes life is wonderful and we tell God that it is. Autumn leaves that turn the countryside into images even Monet couldn’t paint, neighborhood picnics in the summer that create trust not previously known, churches that have good preaching and worship and that respond to needs and that create environments of grace and that make participation the climax of the week, gifts given to persons that empower them with meaning and direction, social institutions that empower the poor and distribute… Read more

This little series on prayer comes out of Praying with the Church: Developing a Personal Prayer Life, which I am hard at work on my off days now. The section I wrote yesterday, on hope, will be changed, as may this section today, on honesty. But here it is in its present shape. (more…) Read more

The Psalms provide for us a complete picture of life’s journey before God. Walter Brueggemann sees three “phases” in the journey of life. Brueggemann calls these three phases orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. The important word for Brueggemann was disorientation, as I think both “orientation” and “new orientation” are bland descriptions for what we are actually going through. (more…) Read more

I will shortly begin a short series of four posts on the “The (inner journey) of a Prayerful Person,” which will be my take on four kinds of Psalms. This is a modification of Walter Brueggemann’s Spirituality of the Psalms. Read more