The Deacon's Bench
Seriously.
She makes her debut today at Patheos, with a lovely and lyrical column that she calls“Book of Sparks.” She explains where that name comes from, and concludes withthis gorgeous Ash Wednesday meditation:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the priest will say today, as he makes the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads. We do not come to Christ as Protestants or Catholics, as Democrats or Republicans, or even as believers or non-believers. We come to Christ as sinners, as beggars. We come in fear and trembling, in wonder and astonishment, and let us never forget, in crazy, wild-card joy. We come and then we want to go out to the world and say, “You come, too! You won’t believe this! God has come to earth as a mortal human being! He’s pitched his tent among us!”
“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it,” observed spiritual writer Madeleine L’Engle.
And perhaps even more succinctly: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn. 1: 5).
Even if the light is the tiniest of sparks.
Read it all. Read her books. Read her blog. Read every word she commits to paper (or, er, screen). Patheos is blessed to have her here.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In