{I wrote this essay about our common fragility during early days of the pandemic. The feelings it brings back! But lately I’m struck anew by our common experience of and encounter with fragility as we observe the war in Ukraine, as we watch the West change almost overnight while war is waged on behalf of democracy and national sovereignty, and as Europe-US relations evolve apace. Let us not forget ‘how fragile we are,’ how much we need each other—not only... Read more
I am moved by the story in Luke 22:14-23:56 [lectionary during week this essay was originally published]. This long tale from the week of Jesus’ passion is revealing about the ways we humans get things wrong and the remarkable ways we are embraced anyway—guided and loved into fullness of being despite mistakes. In Luke’s version of this story, what is emphasized again and again is how Jesus’ closest followers and friends just don’t get it. Whereas some characters who aren’t supposed... Read more
“Being a Christian involves living within the tradition and letting it shape our lives. It means letting these stories have their way with us.” Marcus Borg (emphasis added) What a rich piece of storytelling is John 12: 1-8 [lectionary the week this essay was originally published]. It has everything: a familial friendship; a reference to someone being raised from the dead; the sensuality of a woman dousing a man’s feet with perfume and wiping it off with her hair; a thieving villain thick... Read more
I am irritated at all the weighing in on Smith’s slap, and here I am weighing in. But there is something to say I have not heard. Will Smith is mega-famous and wealthy because we (the American/global audience) have paid him to star in big-budget action movies in which he portrays “the myth of redemptive violence,” which may be the true American mythological story/religion. Americans love the myth of redemptive violence—the story that all conflicts are ultimately solved by the... Read more
Talk about an obscure reading! [Luke 13:1-9; lectionary from week this essay was originally published.] On first read, it can boggle the mind and confuse. It’s easy to misread, thinking Jesus is essentially saying: bad things happen to people because they deserve it, and if you don’t straighten up, bad things will happen to you. But he’s saying something quite different. In the story scene, the crowd references two chilling events of the period. In one, Roman soldiers have killed Galileans—often disdained... Read more
A few years ago, I created a practice that brought Lent to life for me—a new way to commemorate or practice the season. You see, for me, Lenten imagery is strikingly about the darkness and dormancy preceding Easter, like the darkness and dormancy of winter that precedes Spring. A plant goes dormant in wintertime, but it does not die. In fact, the nourishment of winter is essential to its growth. Winter is when roots are strengthened, made ready for the... Read more
A friend once told me, “I wish Christianity wasn’t such a wimpy religion! You know, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, blessed are the meek….” She was tired of it. But the fact is, Christianity is not a wimpy religion (though I contend it’s about nonviolence). It is, quite often, poorly taught. Luke 6:27-38 [lectionary during week this essay was originally published] and its parallel in Matthew are among the most important bits of scripture we get wrong.... Read more
You could say Christians have an incarnated worldview, an “en-fleshed” worldview. This isn’t just because incarnation is part of our spiritual imagination—meaning, the divine made visible in Jesus and indeed in all of creation—but because Jesus’ work addressed physical and emotional needs, needs that were en-fleshed, or experienced by actual human bodies. The Christian life is not merely about an inner, individual experience of faith and peace; even less about beliefs in our heads or hopes for the afterlife. We... Read more
We are in a time. Long before the pandemic, separation and polarization had come to characterize American society—the result of many factors, not least being the media-/now-social-media landscape of the past thirty years. But surely our physical separation from one another since March 2020 has accelerated divisions and suspicions. We are in a time that some speculate could even lead to civil war (of some kind). How on earth did we get here? As an “everyday theologian,” I try to... Read more
In 2015, I experienced a tragic loss. Each morning for weeks, I’d wake at 4:00 with my heart racing; so I’d brew chamomile tea, pull on jeans (looser by the day as I shed pounds through grief), and head out the door to thwart anxiety. As I walked, I often prayed a soothing repetitive prayer or repeated the 23rd Psalm—perhaps my favorite passage of scripture. In hard times, the personal-ness of this Psalm works like medicine on my heart, giving... Read more
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