Come On, God, This Isn’t Working

July 9, 2024 By Kathleen Mulhern

Increasing complexity seems to be a part of aging. Certain things might become simpler, especially after retirement (can’t speak to that yet), but the external streamlining inevitably masks growing internal complications. I suspect these complications begin much earlier than we imagine, but the busyness of child-rearing and career-building, the distractions of success and ambition, and the sheer pleasures of being young, strong, and able cloud the growing whirlwind. Live long enough, and things stop working, and I’m not talking about... Read more

The Measure of a Life

June 27, 2024 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

Yesterday I spent some time with my Dad going through old files. We sifted through a wide assortment of papers that included: 1) memorabilia around his first pastorate in Loomis, Nebraska—annual reports, Sunday bulletins, newspaper clippings about the fire that destroyed the church, groundbreaking on a new church, correspondence including the church’s call and his acceptance, letters of welcome from other Nebraska pastors, pictures of assorted church groups. The Women’s Missionary Society looked as I had always imagined them—hatted, handbagged,... Read more

From Blue Christmases to Blue New Years

December 31, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

Those who suffer experience a deep relief when the holidays are finally over. At least they can stop pretending jolliness, if they even had that much energy. The blues, however, are not banished by the New Year. For some, they can actually intensify as the sense of a “new start” with all its promises seems to elude them. What is a new start when you are missing that one? when you are facing a terminal diagnosis? when you are still... Read more

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Father

December 26, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

Ludolph now moves into the specific petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. The “address” causes him to reflect deeply on the mysteries of that introductory phrase. Whom are we addressing when we call on “Our Father in heaven”? He focuses on three components in that opening petition: 1) Father, “whose children we are by faith.” This, Ludolph insists, is not the generic Fatherhood of God that everyone can claim by virtue of creation. Rather, this is the Fatherhood that is ours... Read more

What Is the Prayer of Salvation?

August 17, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, my medieval friend, Ludolph of Saxony, brings to our attention the Lord’s Prayer, beginning by commending it to us as the prayer that “excels all other prayers” and that which “enshrines an immense number of mysteries.” I’m not sure that opinion is widely shared in the evangelical world today. Protestantism’s dread of written prayers—rote, droned over, mechanical, and magical recitations of ancient formulae—has led to its widespread abandonment of the Lord’s... Read more

The Goodness Conundrum

August 1, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

Jesus sums up his counsel about relationships with this command: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5.48). This perfection, Ludolph explains, is “the perfection of grace,” and it enables us to “be perfect in the way we can be” (not in the way we can’t be, thankfully). It’s a perfection of charity, a perfection of courage and humility, a perfection of patience and blessing. But Jesus is wise, so so wise, and he knows that those... Read more

Generosity, from the Inside Out

July 26, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

At this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gets very irksome. Until now, we can see the value of his counsel—control your anger, be faithful to your spouse, stay honest. Okay. All good points. But now he’s telling us, apparently, to do things that will really mess with the system: don’t resist an evil person, give to anyone who asks, love your enemies. None of these bits of advice settles well in this age of rights, hostilities, and... Read more

The Sermon, Hair Color, and Swearing

July 11, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

Of course I don’t cuss. Well, not much. So that takes care of the Sermon’s verses about oaths, right? (You potty-mouthed people might want to spend more time with them though.) Ludolph, my medieval guide to the life of Jesus (see below), writes eight chapters on the Sermon on the Mount, concluding this one (Part One, Volume 1, Chapter 34) with several pages on Jesus’ words about oaths. Seems like overkill. We want to rush on to the guy... Read more

The Author of Purity

June 27, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

“Purity” is a term reserved today for the properties of vitamins or the quality of drinking water or specialty treatments at spas. It has long sense lost much moral weight with people, and “purity culture” actually now has deeply objectionable connotations and a sad track record. Ludolph, however, sees Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount about adultery and lust as words of purity spoken by the Author of purity. Self-indulgence in deed is condemned by the law,... Read more

From Virtue Signaling to Virtue

June 20, 2023 By Kathleen Mulhern

0 Comments

Ludolph’s commentary* on the Sermon on the Mount moves into touchy ground when he begins to talk about Christ’s plan to fulfill the law, and his warning that his disciples, too, must demonstrate true righteousness. “Sound doctrine,” he writes, “without virtuous living is not sufficient for salvation.” I know we all say that sound doctrine is not enough, but we certainly don’t act like it. Both the “right” and the “left” say they have right doctrine (right belief systems, right... Read more