In her spiritual memoir Still, Lauren Winner begins a brief chapter on prayer by noting that “it is easier to read about prayer than to pray” (tell me about it), then describes the results of a fifty-year-old study of children and prayer, the aim of which was to discover how children’s concepts of prayer evolve as they grow older. The results of the study reveal a hierarchy similar to Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, in which children’s ideas about prayer... Read more
The reading from the Jewish scriptures for this coming Sunday is from Genesis 45 when Joseph, after several chapters of making his brothers’ lives miserable, reveals to them that he is indeed their lost brother whom they had sold into slavery when he was but a youngster. The story of Joseph, among other things, is a story of radical forgiveness. In my forthcoming book A Year of Faith and Philosophy, I consider the story of Joseph’s fraught relationship with his... Read more
Do not letthe sun go down on your wrath. Ephesians 4:26 Although I have been largely successful in carrying out my commitment to not getting sucked into the daily black hole of bad news since the November election, the daily barrage of bullshit from Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their minions is not easy to completely ignore. Anger and hate, two feelings that are not natural to me, regularly threaten to percolate to the surface. My Facebook acquaintances, whom I... Read more
An Abiding Suspicion . . . A mystic is anyone who has the gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradictions, and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity. Lawrence Kushner Once several years ago Jeanne and I were in the car listening to the hourly news update on NPR. As usual, they were trying to stuff as much horrible news as possible into a three-minute segment. Ebola, ISIS, Zika, Palestinians, Israel, Istanbul, Russia, illegal immigrants,... Read more
Human love in the purest forms we can know it, wife and husband, parent and child, has the aura and the immutability of the sacred. Marilynne Robinson I’ve often heard it said (and may have complained myself a few times) that Valentine’s Day both is a creation of Madison Avenue and is primarily for the young. It is indeed a big money-maker, and I remember clearly how Valentine’s rituals were forced on me as early as first grade as we peered into... Read more
Beautiful Souls Because I’m a romantic at heart, I’ll be posting two Valentine’s Day-themed posts this week. It’s my small contribution to pushing back against the disturbing news and events that threaten to overwhelm us every day. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we might ask What makes a human being beautiful? What is it that we love when we love someone? These are questions that Marilynne Robinson explores in her 2020 novel Jack through a very unlikely romance. Both Jack... Read more
The annual National Prayer Breakfast happened last Thursday. 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 opening lines were SHOUT OUT, DO NOT HOLD BACK! LIFT UP YOUR VOICE LIKE A TRUMPET! Which I did, sort of—as... Read more
Canada is in the news–unfortunately, not for reasons that they chose. Due to President Orange Menace’s decision to strain relationships with our closest neighbors to the north with a 25% tariff on Candian goods, Canadians have yet another reason to wonder what the hell is wrong with their neighbors to the south. Apparently boos have been filling arenas when the US national anthem is played at NHL hockey games in Canada this week. You really have be deliberately offensive to get... Read more
This year Christians are marking the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea–at least those Christians who care about or who are aware of such things. One Sunday not that long ago, I decided to pay close attention to the words of the Nicene Creed when it showed up as it does every Sunday morning in the Episcopal liturgy right after the homily. People usually pay about as much attention to the text of the Creed as they do to the... Read more
I haven’t had a chance to teach the ancient greats in philosophy in several semesters, largely because I haven’t been teaching in the freshman semesters of the large interdisiplinary program I regularly participate in. I’ve mostly been working in sophomore sections of that program, which means the late 18th century to t0day. The next time I teach ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, I will include a figure that I only became aware of a few years ago: Mediocrates. Mediocrates, who lived around... Read more
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