For now, today, to get a sense of this scene, imagine walking into synagogue on Saturday or church on Sunday only to find bouncers—big, bullish, Samson-sized men—in the back of the sanctuary, keeping you from bringing your offering. And as you pass the door to the sanctuary, there’s a sign posted with bold letters: NO MAN OR WOMAN IS TO MAKE ANYTHING ELSE AS AN OFFERING. Read more
Less than one percent of your day given to contemplation. And that less-than-one-percent will reorient you, relax you, refresh you and—let’s not forget this—delight God. Not a bad way to spend eight-tenths of one percent of our otherwise stressful, busy lives. Read more
I think too often Christians believe the holy spirit begins its best work when the mind shuts off. We say things like, “I’ll leave that to the spirit,” which means I won’t work hard with every ounce of energy I can muster, every discipline I can develop. The story of Joseph puts the lie to this belief. It’s not despite Joseph’s abilities but because of them that Pharaoh recognizes the wisdom, discernment and spirit of God in Joseph. Read more
The Bible doesn’t excise the ambiguity from life, not even when its stories are about the life-giving, energy-creating, vitality-infusing spirit of God. We learn first about the spirit only in the shadow of death, and we cling to that life still, floodwaters notwithstanding. We may be black and blue, but we’re black and blue because the blood still pulses in our veins, the breath still fills our lungs, the spirit still flares in our nostrils. We are still alive and kicking, thank God. Read more
The Hebrew word ruach opens a world of mystery, a vista of possibilities that encompass breath, winds, and divine spirit. It’s like the wardrobe that opens to the world of Narnia—into which you are invited to step. It’s like an old key hole you’d peek through to glimpse a hidden room—into which you’re invited to look. It’s like the passageway Alice falls through to enter Wonderland—into which you are now invited to tumble. Read more
Sometimes we feel the chaos deeper still. Clench at the stab of sickness. Stand, shaken, in the shadow of death. But even here there is tension between order and chaos, pleasure and pain. There is birth, and there is death. There is sickness, and there is health. This, we understand, even if we don't like it, is part of the order of creation, the way life is. Read more
Are the people of Syria so destitute, so cornered by chemical weapons, so oppressed that there is no alternative but violence? Or will a limited attack on Syria be a symbolic, punitive gesture that fails to liberate an oppressed people? That is the epic question facing Barack Obama in the hours and days ahead. Read more
Kids should be relentless—not behaviorally modified to relent, to give ground, to concede and cave. Education should train them to be insistent, curious, inquisitive. Read more
Ask yourself what loving God with “your whole heart” means, and you may come up with something like, “Love God with your whole self” or “your whole being.” We think of the heart as the seat of emotions—or perhaps the will. Actually, the Hebrew word, heart, lebab, is better translated in the Shema by the word, memory: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your memory.” Read more
There we were, together, a white twelve-year-old boy with an utter incapacity to sing the tenor line and an old black man with a voice that could inspire the angels. Together we were a community. Uncle Willie and me. Something more was going on between us than either of us could have mustered as individuals—the inability even to consider that age or race could keep us from being friends, for instance. Read more
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