The World Can Shine Like Transfiguration

Last updated on: February 16, 2026 at 9:27 am By Vance Morgan

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Each of the synoptic gospels, including today’s lectionary reading from Matthew, tells essentially the same story. Jesus takes his inner circle of Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain where suddenly Jesus has a conversation with Moses and Elijah, while “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.” The disciples are understandably frightened, but Peter still suggests that... Read more

The National Prayer Breakfast Gets an Unexpected Visitor

Last updated on: February 12, 2026 at 12:35 am By Vance Morgan

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The annual National Prayer Breakfast happened last week. I don’t know what happened or what was said, but I can’t get this imagined picture from Facebook out of my mind. My sincere apologies . . . Once when I was the scheduled lector at church, the reading from the Jewish scriptures for the day was from Isaiah 58–the same text that was the first reading this past Sunday. The opening lines were SHOUT OUT, DO NOT HOLD BACK! LIFT UP... Read more

La Bella Luna: A Lunar Spirituality

Last updated on: February 6, 2026 at 1:10 pm By Vance Morgan

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Shortly before the 2013 conclave that would elect him as Pope Francis I, then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio urged his fellow cardinals to remember that Christians should live by the light of the moon rather than of the sun. Followers of Christ should reflect the source of light rather than acting as if they are the source. With regard to the hierarchy of the religious structure he would soon be elected to lead, he said that the Church exists to reflect Christ—as... Read more

What Does the Lord Require of You?

Last updated on: February 4, 2026 at 1:48 pm By Vance Morgan

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Over the past months, I have become more and more familiar with how Lutherans do things. Over the past year-plus, Jeanne has become a licensed lay minister in a local Lutheran church. As she became more and more embedded with this parish, I accompanied her occasionally in support an occasional occurance that has become weekly except when I am leading a monthly discussion group at the Episcopal church with a group that has been together for fourteen years. Lutherans worship... Read more

The Beatitudes: A Call to Change the World

Last updated on: January 31, 2026 at 4:15 pm By Vance Morgan

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It is a scene so familiar in our imaginations that it has become iconic. On the top of a hill in the middle of the impromptu gathering is the man everybody has been talking about and has gathered to check out. He doesn’t look any different from any number of other guys in the crowd. In spite of the stories that seem to pop up everywhere this man goes, you would not be able to pick him out of a... Read more

The Nihilist Penguin

Last updated on: January 28, 2026 at 10:48 pm By Vance Morgan

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During finals week in December, a student from my Early Modern Philosophy course showed up for his final oral exam. He asked “Do you remember a student named _____________? You had him in class eight or nine years ago.” I admitted that although the name sounded vaguely familiar, I did not remember the student. “He’s my older brother,” the student replied. “When I told him I was having an oral exam today in your office, he said ‘check out the... Read more

He said “Follow me”–and they did

Last updated on: January 25, 2026 at 2:29 pm By Vance Morgan

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Those of a certain age will remember a television ad campaign for the financial firm E. F. Hutton from a few decades ago. A couple of guys are having lunch at an upscale restaurant, discussing their financial portfolios–they are surrounded by dozens of other people in the midst of various conversations. One guy says “Well, E. F. Hutton says . . .” and silence descends as everyone in the restaurant turns with great anticipation to hear the rest of the... Read more

Where Is Your Bullet?

Last updated on: January 22, 2026 at 9:20 am By Vance Morgan

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There’s nothing better than a good dog story–I’ve told many of them over the dozen-plus years of this blog’s existence as I occasionally report on the goings-on of whatever dogs are living with us at the moment. Besides sheer entertainment, dog lovers tell canine stories because we learn both a great deal about ourselves and who or what made us by paying attention to the animals we choose to share our lives with. In an early chapter in Christian Wiman’s... Read more

Outgrowing the Need to Believe

Last updated on: January 16, 2026 at 1:54 pm By Vance Morgan

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A number of years ago, at the end of a presentation to fellow resident scholars at an ecumenical institute where I was spending a sabbatical semester, someone exasperatedly asked “Vance, don’t you have to believe something with certainty in order to be Christian?” I responded (as philosophers tend to do) with a question of my own: “I don’t know. Do I?” Snarkiness aside, the question of belief and certainty continues to obsess me years after that exchange. One of the... Read more

Mary Got To Choose

Last updated on: January 14, 2026 at 2:38 pm By Vance Morgan

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Readers of this blog know that I have frequently recommended podcasts over the past months and few years. Today my recommendation is “The Ezra Klein Show.” I don’t listen to this podcast every week, since Klein often gets into the political weeds far more than I’m wiling to go. But occasionally the conversation includes matters that are of great interest–this week’s episode is one of thos occasions. The title of the episode is “Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the... Read more

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