family

Not long ago, Jeanne and I had dinner with Beverley and Ed, two Long Island...

In his lovely little book Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner suggests that what we often dismiss as...

One of the most fascinating and troubling verses in the Jewish scriptures is from the...

During summer orientation for freshmen, I often help the director of the Honors Program on...

Each week for many years, Garrison Keillor told “Prairie Home Companion” listeners the news from...

At the beginning of a new year, I often find myself thinking not so much...

Christmas movies are a big deal at my house. Jeanne goes for the classics, such...

I have a colleague and friend with whom I share a lot in common. Eric...

In my religious tradition, we didn’t do saints. But we did do Christmas pageants—big time....

A popular Christian writer got herself in trouble not long ago by suggesting on Twitter...

I was raised in a version of Christianity that had no sense of the liturgical...

We’ve all done this, we bang and bang on the door of hope, and don’t...

I recently had a brief, unproductive exchange in the comment section of this blog with...

As we approach the Advent and Christmas seasons, I am in a forward-looking and hopeful...

Today is Black Friday, the unfortunate beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Apparently in service...

Today is my youngest son Justin's thirty-seventh birthday. If that's not enough to make me...

One of my favorite features of liturgical worship is encountering familiar and favorite texts during...

Thanks to the caravan of refugees moving north, President Trump's choice to stoke up fears...

One Sunday, toward the end of a particularly lively and deep seminar with my “Living...

Tomorrow is Halloween!–one of my least favorite holidays of the year. I know that offends...

About a month ago I received an email from my friend Marsue, brief and to...

According to the gospel accounts, Jesus had little regard for traditional honorifics, titles, or the...

It's been a rough couple of months at our house, as two members of the...

Last spring I taught a colloquium called "Apocalypse" with a colleague from the English department....

Two years ago, the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11 fell on a Sunday. The priest of...

It's Labor Day--an opportunity for each of us to reflect on the value of our...

While the President of the United States tweeted his usual string of petty Saturday morning...

My youngest son was born in 1981 and grew up as Americans began, for the...

Last Tuesday, on the sixth anniversary of my blog, I posted my first blog post--an...

Six years ago today, after a great deal of resistance, I finally followed the advice...