The Feast of the Epiphany is tomorrow, January 6. Let’s get a 24-hour headstart by considering the heart of this unique liturgical season that marks the “coming out party” of Jesus. Here’s what I wrote for the day of Epiphany in my forthcoming book A Year of Faith and Philosophy. The gospel reading in all three years for Epiphany is the familiar story from Matthew 2 where wise men from the East, following a star, end up at the house where... Read more
Three years ago this coming Saturday, I was sitting in the recliner in our little library room, alone in the house with our elderly dachshund Winnie (Jeanne was away on a work-related trip), clacking away on my laptop putting finishing touches on one of the courses I would be teaching when the spring semester began in ten days. It was two days after I had learned from the health care folks at the college that the Covid test I had... Read more
My first post of the New Year on this blog often goes in the direction of the sort of resolution that many of us get wrapped up with at the beginning of the year. Not this year. I am weary, as I suspect many of you are, of attempting to reduce the complexity of life and relality to a platitude, meme, or sound bite. Christian Wiman writes that “’Love is all you need’ works fine in a pop song, but... Read more
So here we are at the end of yet another year. Kate Bowler, who all of you know is one of my favorite authors and podcast creators, always ends her weekly podcast (“Everything Happens”) with a blessing because, as she says, “around here we like to bless the crap out of each other.” This prayer closes her final podcast interview of the season–Jeanne and I both found it particularly compelling and insightful. Looking I stand, stone still, at the edge... Read more
When considering the familiar stories of the Christmas season, we often forget that some of the stories are very dark. The juxtaposition of promise and death, of expectation and suffering, is nothing new. This dissonance is built into the fabric of the stories that we tend to tell selectively and sanitize for public consumption at this time of year. Today, for instance, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents–a story that we don’t hear about very often. The text of... Read more
What would you call a friend who is as unpredictable as the weather, who shows up unexpectedly behind the scenes to arrange things in your favor on occasion but who never seems to be around at crunch time? What is the right word to describe an acquaintance who you are sure can help in difficult situations and never is available, but who also has just the right word or advice when you are least expecting it? Unreliable? A godsend? Disappointing?... Read more
Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you get there on you own. Anne Lamott A few years ago, Jeanne surprised me for Father’s Day by taking me to a concert in Maryland by one of my favorite musicians. I discovered Fernando Ortega’s music many years ago after plugging the name of one of the few Christian artists I can stand into Pandora. After playing a... Read more
For many Christians attuned to the liturgical year, thoughts turn toward Mary during the final days of Advent. Since this coming Sunday is the fourth and last Sunday of Advent, let’s do that. I have a colleague and friend with whom I share a lot in common. Eric and I are both “Johnnies,” graduates of the St. John’s College Great Books curriculum (he graduated a few years before I did back in the 1970s). We share the same scholarly interests; he... Read more
Regular readers of this blog know how obsessed Jeanne and I are with our corgi Bovina. She’s a bit over two years old and runs the house with the ease and confidence of someone who knows that everything works together for her good, as I described in an essay last July. What We Can Learn about Trust from a Corgi Bovina is the fifth dog we have had over our thirty-five years together; not all of the previous four have... Read more
During Advent season, John the Baptist gets a lot of play. This makes sense, since Christians view him as a forerunner of Jesus, the sort of person who should take center stage during the season that anticipates the Incarnation. In their respective gospels, Mark and John give John the Baptist center stage from the outset, beginning their narratives with John’s ministry and activities while not even bothering to mention Jesus’ birth. Mark’s version was last week’s gospel; today it’s John’s turn.... Read more
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