Spiritual Neuropathy

Last updated on: January 7, 2011 at 6:12 pm By Frederick Schmidt

Physical symptoms offer useful analogies to the spiritual life. Neuropathy is a case in point. Frequently when patients suffer from diabetes, neuropathy is one of the early signs of the disease’s presence. The patient can lose feeling or experience a tingling sensation as nerve damage grows and spreads; and, left unattended, amputation may prove to be the only solution. The condition is usually at its worst in patients who haven’t acknowledged the seriousness of their condition and modified their diet.... Read more

Words to live by

Last updated on: January 3, 2011 at 11:02 pm By Frederick Schmidt

I love aphorisms — short, pointed, insightful observations. It all started with writing speeches for the Optimist Club. They once sponsored “oratorical contests” and I loved competing in them. Each year they advertised a new topic and the assignment was to write, memorize, and deliver a speech of five to seven minutes in length. The first year the topic was “Optimism, youth’s greatest asset.” It seems kind of corny now, but it prompted me to think, read, and build my... Read more

Which New Year?

Last updated on: January 2, 2011 at 3:03 pm By Frederick Schmidt

We’ve celebrated two new years now…one driven by the calendar, the other driven by the liturgical year. The liturgical year, which you can think of as the year, structured by the Christian story began at Advent in the beginning of December and takes us imaginatively through the story of Jesus’ life and the lives of the early apostles. Apart from other things, it is a cycle designed to remind the church of its responsibilities and, more importantly, the work of... Read more

Rent-free in my head

Last updated on: December 30, 2010 at 2:13 pm By Frederick Schmidt

This last semester one of the phrases that lingered from a student’s paper was the phrase, “living rent-free in my head.” It’s a great turn of phrase and underlines the power of unexamined, unchallenged assumptions that can linger, exercising unwelcome control over us….limiting and misshaping our daily existence. What are the ideas that are living rent-free in your head? How do they inhibit your own spiritual freedom? Your relationship with God? Your relationship with those you love? How would this... Read more

Hitting a religious nerve

Last updated on: December 24, 2010 at 5:07 am By Frederick Schmidt

In a recent column written for the Washington Post, I commented on religious displays in public spaces. As is the case with articles of that kind, the Post went for a title that would match other contributions to the symposium that they were featuring. Their title for the article was “The Scandal of Atheist Campaigns against Christmas” and, predictably, it attracted a different audience. The change in title was a bit unfortunate, because I’m not sure that there is a... Read more

Something new for Christmas

Last updated on: December 21, 2010 at 6:39 pm By Frederick Schmidt

One of my students recounted a story that, I’m told, is widely known in Roman Catholic circles. So the story goes: A little girl was sitting with her mother in church and asked, “Mommy, where is Jesus?” Deeply formed by her faith, the little girl’s mother pointed to the Tabernacle where the reserve sacrament is kept. The little girl was silent for a moment and then declared, “When I grow up I’m going to buy him a bigger box.” This... Read more

Gurus and Gods: On Spiritual Direction

Last updated on: December 16, 2010 at 6:24 am By Frederick Schmidt

My students often bring things to my attention that stick. It’s one of the gifts of reading their papers. One of the students in our spiritual direction program noted that some clergy are suspicious of spiritual direction. She quotes one pastor who observes, “I fear that the gift of so-called spiritual director is just another guru-gimmick which sources spirituality in religious opinions, teachings, and practices that are utterly foreign to Holy Scripture, and such a source of spirituality will not... Read more

Why is the Incarnation important?

Last updated on: December 15, 2010 at 2:08 pm By Frederick Schmidt

Why is the Incarnation important? I’ve contributed an abbreviated answer to this question as part of a symposium here at Patheos: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Why-the-Incarnation-Matters?offset=1&max=1 Check out the responses and chime in. Here is the rather longer version of the answer I gave: From the beginning Christians have affirmed that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. Why? If Jesus is just a good guy, then the world has one more hero — but nothing more — and we are stuck with... Read more

Always a pilgrim

Last updated on: December 14, 2010 at 3:25 am By Frederick Schmidt

I had the privilege of addressing the “Gusto!” group at King of Glory Lutheran Church here in Dallas. As the description of the group might suggest, the class is largely (though not exclusively) made up of folks who have retired. And the subject that they wanted to explore dealt with God’s will. One of the people who attended admitted that she really wasn’t sure that there was much for someone her age to gain from a conversation of that kind. ... Read more

What do you need to hear?

Last updated on: December 12, 2010 at 2:43 am By Frederick Schmidt

My wife and I recently spent a day at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth. In the permanent collection is what may well be Michelangelo’s earliest painting, “The Torment of St. Anthony” — a vivid portrayal of St. Anthony’s struggle with temptation in the desert. It got me thinking… Our inner lives are too small. They are cluttered with the kind of distractions that they sell in tourist traps — pot metal and plastic, cheap construction, loud colors — here... Read more