What is the crying at Jordan? Who hears, O God, the prophecy? Dark is the season, dark our hearts and shut to mystery. (– words by Carol Christopher Drake, in old Irish Advent hymn) There was once a man whose name was John.  These words begin the tale of the prophet in the wilderness, in the gospel of John.  And then the writer plunges us into a confounding saga, of light that is at the center of the world, light... Read more

It is in rugged rises, in unweariable endurance, and in aims which put sympathy out of question, that the angel is shown.  — Ralph Waldo Emerson Advent cries out in two voices – a duet of harks and clamorings:  the first voice is always John’s, the Forerunner, the Voice crying in the wilderness; the second is the Angel Gabriel’s, who looses Mary’s long recitatif, her Magnificat, singing out in grace notes the angel has proclaimed as her great virtue, the... Read more

On the stiff twig up there Hunches a wet black rook Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain. -Sylvia Plath, from Black Rook in Rainy Weather Advent – a season of darkness, movement in shadows, inexplicable starlight, wonder – and waiting.  The word, from Latin, means ‘come to’.   And yet the direction of the coming, the whereabouts of ‘to’, are a mystery.  Is it God who comes?  Of course it is. Or is it we who enter the darkness... Read more

In J.K. Rowling’s  world of Harry Potter, where the aim of education was to learn the extent of your spiritual powers and how to control them, first year students were assigned by The Sorting Hat to one of four houses, each defined by a paramount virtue:  bravery; hard work; cleverness; or ambition.  So the sorting, by which they had already been chosen to attend school, continued within the school, affecting everything from coursework to sport to alumni battles for direction... Read more

There’s a razor’s edge in Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ tales.  Occasional words of warning appear in the other gospels;  In Matthew, they become an imago dei.   And the image is of God the Judge, not so much merciful as approving or punishing.  I shy away from this image of God.  The image of don’t make mistakes.  The image of don’t be foolish.  The image of the locked door that will not open for foolish bridesmaids in the middle of the... Read more

Who has a wedding in the middle of the night anyway?  How can anyone be prepared for that? It’s the lament of the foolish bridesmaids, who came to the wedding without oil for their lamps, and then had to run out to the store, and ended up missing the whole thing. It’s a weird tale, when you think about it.  What kind of bridegroom turns up late?  Isn’t that the bride’s right, to come late to the wedding?  How can... Read more

We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others.  An interpreted world is not a hope.  Part of the terror is to take back our own listening.  To use our own voice.  To see our own light.  – Hildegard of Bingen, quoted by Barbara Brown Taylor, in Learning to Walk in the Dark. Saints are luminous.  In our iconography, they wear haloes.  And in our story-telling, they shed light upon the world around them, and the... Read more

A lawyer asked him a question to test him:  Which is the greatest commandment?  – Matthew  22: 35 Who can blame folks for suspecting Jesus might be a fake?  People still do, and there are a thousand jokes to prove it.  There’ve been a lot of fakes on the public stage.   And there still are.  This time, though, Jesus had a memorable come-back.   He’d thought about this question before. Was that because he’d heard it often?  Or was it one... Read more

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.  – Matthew 22: 21  It may be Jesus’ most often quoted line,  moral armor for defenders of the way things are, in Caesar’s world.  Some insist this question, Jesus’ answer to a very tricky question posed by his opposition, was a signal he was uninterested in economic, or political, questions. Yet, the great number of stories Jesus told about the uses of money assure... Read more

The Wedding of the Year was just held in Venice:  George Clooney, world’s most eligible bachelor, who’s twice been named Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine (and ten years apart, to boot, 1997 and 2006) wed the stunningly beautiful Amal Alamuddin, reknowned civil rights attorney, born in Lebanon, educated at Oxford and NYU Law School, clerked for Justice Sotomayor, and at 36 has earned her silk at the London bar. Meanwhile, the text this week tells the story of a... Read more