O come,
Between Heaven and Hell,
Earth, formless and void.
O come
Between God’s breath and the serpent’s deception,
a couple sins.
how will this be?
The desert of unprophetic years turns on a moment. It catches stars and pulls them in close like a surgeon caring for a dying patient. An angel descends looking for a certain teenage girl named Mary. When he locates her, she is startled by his appearance and his announcement. The nature of the news invites her to question…
eden made the mountains
weight of love
In the face of hosannas alluring ease, you saw through the veil of cloaks and palms to find the soul of restless humanity who spat and hurled insults within the week, the dying messiah who wouldn't speak, ignoring the politic while submitting to the instrument designed that day to reconcile sin by the color red.
write me into your story
I press my ear to the door and listen. I hear a conversation. It drifts in and out. At times there is nothing, just silence... and me – my own person – some purveyor who has bought into the trick and doesn’t know how it works. God, let’s not pretend. My perception of your whole story, from closing up the garden shop onward, falls onto stony paths most of the time.
Christ in you
puzzling christmas
the prophetic is silent
The prophetic is silent. Its heyday is now rained out in an unbaptized haze of tolerance run amuck. O'Connor warned us: we really want a Christ without all that crucifixion talk. We want everyone carrying around open minds on top of shoulders broad enough to narrow nothing, and arms that carry no punch of truth, no signs of crosses, no healed withered-ness in its hands.
shame on you, american church
I wonder. As I approach history, visiting churches dating well before the declaration of our independence and the security of our constitution with its promise to make no laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion and the right for any of us to peaceably assemble together… I wonder... why are all these churches locked, boarded up, empty shells?
the god of conspiracy
He made us, human beings, from the dirt of Earth, and he breathed in his very own breath to spring forth life, will, animation, and purpose within us. So, from the very beginning, God conspires with his human creatures, for, as you might know, conspire is broken into con and spire, which means together and breathed, respectfully. God breathed together with humans to give life, and in Jesus, life more abundantly.
distance
the highest good
At no other point has the whole world melted into a mold that looks like the end. You can cite wars and all their rumors but they are starting points that progressed us here to a tiny infectious agent that masquerades itself until it kills us, or at least some of us. Sound familiar? It’s the garden story recycled.
virus
Reflection on the Suffering
It’s heavy; I don’t know if I can bear it; the whips are driving into my back; my feet are sore; beneath me the riveting rocks press in; my eyes sting from the sweat; I am hot; I am cold. “Why don’t you save yourself?” jeers someone close to me from the lynch mob that has surrounded me. Father even now forgive them.
gods and mini-gods
Who started looking up anyhow? If gods are to be found, wouldn’t they be closer in? Sustenance makes leveled sense. Survival is intimate with what the winds bring in or what they keep away. And who moves these winds? Who strings up the clouds and thickens their skins to hold in the sun’s greed? Is the sky’s vastness reason for our inferiority?
lasts
lenten wreck
three words
four types of love
Today, the word “love” is overused and undervalued at the same time. We love everything from foods to cars, from movies to retailers, from people to God himself. We may not consciously distinguish one use of love from another, in part because our speech is becoming more and more informal and reduced every year, but it’s important to be intentional about the differences.
