suspended in her jar
If we believe that God really came into this world for the salvation of all, at Christmas time, we should not be building walls to cage the divine and keep out those who we deem unworthy. Read more
If we believe that God really came into this world for the salvation of all, at Christmas time, we should not be building walls to cage the divine and keep out those who we deem unworthy. Read more
Right now we are in the time before the coming of a savior, so our doubts and questions have a place. We are permitted to long, with the Hebrews, for the physical deliverer - and with the early Christians for the physical return of the Jesus who had ascended into the clouds. Read more
The one church should get over the differences that seem to divide it by means of a never ending dialogue, by hearing the one Word, by sitting at the same meal, by proclaiming from the outset and agreed to by all that we are already one in Christ. Read more
These advent readings about justice and judgment - should we read them with hope, or with fear? It’s clear that for the downtrodden, the poor, the outcast, the exile, these readings speak of the coming of a savior who is for them. Read more
The history of women advancing salvation history in both the Old and the New Testaments is a history of unruliness, not submission. The model with which Mary of Nazareth presents us is one of daring autonomy, a woman claiming a direct line to God instead of deferring to a man as God’s representative. Read more
For those who have not believed me, who have openly mocked me, called me a liar, and even questioned my very salvation, you taught me to stand strong in my truth and find courage and strength I did not know that I had. For that, I am grateful. Read more
The conversation about student loan forgiveness has come around again, and once again we are being regaled with laments about how unfair it is, to those who already paid their debts, should other people be released from another twenty or thirty years of Sysiphean labors. I am at a loss to understand why another person’s good fortune should embitter one’s own success, but this is apparently a thing. Resentment of the rich by the poor makes sense to me, especially... Read more
For Christians, especially, who invented the term “family values”: if we genuinely believe in protecting families, in creating a culture that promotes the essential dignity of family life, we need to be serious about extending this consideration to all families. We need to start to be consistent, instead of privileging some families and erasing others. The refugee parents who are trying to find a better life for their families and children are fulfilling their moral responsibility as parents - and if we oppose them rather than help them, we are, I believe, complicit in serious evil. Read more
In the past, repeatedly, experts on ecology have issued dire warnings regarding the effects of pollution and pesticides. That Rust Belt cities are livable at all today is a testimony to the importance of taking these warnings seriously. Yet the irony, of course, is that when we pay attention and do something to avert the crisis, and the crisis doesn’t come, there will always be those who say there was never any crisis in the first place. Read more
No, the kink in the clerical moral life is not celibacy, and of this I am reasonably certain. For celibacy does not make pedophiles and ephebophiles, though those sorts may be attracted to it since celibacy does in fact mean that a man doesn’t have to deal seriously with an adult woman. Read more
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