Upside-down: Four questions as we ponder the metaphor ‘king’

Last updated on: March 16, 2023 at 7:34 am By Tricia Gates Brown

Whenever we talk about God, or the incarnational role of Jesus, we use metaphors. The God who created a universe so beyond our understanding our heads explode trying to understand—this God can only be known by metaphor. And what Jesus might mean as representative of this God is equally head-exploding. God and Jesus are in many ways indescribable. Metaphors are how we talk about things that are indescribable. We compare the indescribable thing to something familiar and easy to understand... Read more

What makes us unstoppable? We tell stories.

Last updated on: November 12, 2022 at 1:33 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

First, a few years back, Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens (2014) enthralled me. Now he’s got a new book out. While I’ve not yet read Unstoppable Us, How Humans Took Over the World, I enjoyed hearing him talk about it on a favorite podcast: ‘The Gray Area with Sean Illing.’ Harari makes some similar assertions in these books, namely that humans have transcended other species because—of all things—we were able to pass on great stories. Sacred stories. Shared stories. Basically,... Read more

Have you ever had a bad goodbye? Offer yourself compassion.

Last updated on: November 5, 2022 at 6:56 am By Tricia Gates Brown

An overheard conversation brought to mind a deeply regrettable goodbye. The memory stings, as such memories do; but unlike past times when I have buckled, winced, and looked away at the memory, I wanted this time to have compassion in the recalling. I wonder if we all need this: to return to regrets with the practiced eye of self-compassion. After all, I was 23 years old at the time—barely a fully functioning adult, even if I did already have a... Read more

All Saints’ Day: The continuum of life and death

Last updated on: November 1, 2022 at 6:22 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

Because today is All Saints’ Day, I’m remembering my best friend who died just over a year ago—a Trappist monk for sixty-plus years, with whom I’d been close for 20 years. I miss him. Since his death, I’ve thought more about the afterlife than ever before, and its caused me to ponder more the ancient Christian celebrations of All Saints’ Eve (All Hallows Eve or Halloween), All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—which stem from belief in enduring bonds between... Read more

Who you love determines what you believe

Last updated on: October 30, 2022 at 5:44 am By Tricia Gates Brown

Lately I’ve stumbled on materials about why we believe what we believe. Those who study such things find that our beliefs have little to do with reasoning or logic. This is a bit discouraging, because we want to believe our core beliefs are logical and based on reason. But the fact is, we adopt our beliefs from those we love and trust. Only then do we seek out ways to rationalize those beliefs. Beliefs are essentially born out of relationship,... Read more

You can start with compassion: On Abortion and nuance

Last updated on: October 27, 2022 at 7:41 am By Tricia Gates Brown

I take particular care when writing about abortion because the issue is not black and white. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be the most contentious topic of public debate in our country, and people wouldn’t hold the nuanced views they do. The fact is, the majority of Americans do have views that are nuanced—not black and white. According to 2022 Pew Research statistics, a majority of Americans (61%) believe abortion should be legal, with some perimeters; only about 37%... Read more

9 Ways Humans Can Know and Understand God

Last updated on: October 27, 2022 at 6:54 am By Tricia Gates Brown

To what extent can humans know and understand God? a reader asks. In answering, I start at the beginning. These 9 ways are not prioritized, but they do move from the first to the second half of life and the thread of incarnation runs through them. Everything we experience of God is embodied, en-fleshed. Even our contemplative reverberations occur in the cells our spirits inhabit on this Earth. This reality, this fact of human existence, is appreciated by all traditions... Read more

Freedom for Transcendence: The liberation and limitations of our Walden Ponds

Last updated on: October 19, 2022 at 5:43 am By Tricia Gates Brown

{Four years ago at this time, I was at Walden Pond. Before the trip, I wrote this reflection. While in Concord, I saw handwritten, original drafts of Thoreau manuscripts, pictured above.} When I moved from Oregon’s Willamette Valley to the north Oregon coast in 2004, it was a leap. I parachuted out of a life that no longer accommodated into a 10-month sojourn of dis-illusionment, dismantling, and radiant transformation in a tiny Oceanside, Oregon duplex on a cliff overhanging the... Read more

Martin and the Cedar Tree: Serendipities and the Afterlife

Last updated on: October 15, 2022 at 7:30 am By Tricia Gates Brown

For well over a year, the tree has been silent. But at first, it was noisy. The incense cedar sits next to the path I walk most days, a band around our hayfield trampled by foot falls—mine and my husband’s and the dog’s. At the time of the noise, I walked early most days, around dawn. I’d just lost my best friend, a Trappist monk I met twenty years earlier. Martin and I were like family, though closer than family,... Read more

‘Heaven and Earth are full of your glory’

Last updated on: October 14, 2022 at 3:45 pm By Tricia Gates Brown

The parable in this Sunday’s lectionary reading (Luke 18:1-8) about a widow’s persistence before an unjust judge is one of a few parables in which Jesus uses a story-snapshot—which is what a parable is—to portray and commend faith-persistence. The snapshot seems to be saying: No matter what happens, no matter how grim things look, don’t despair, don’t give up hope. This past weekend I participated in a gathering of clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon in which we talked... Read more

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