Taking on Great Responsibility

A lot of mental and emotional interference takes place when we hear the readings for this feast. People tend to focus on the line from the Letter to Colossians about wives being subordinate to their husbands, or parents and children exchange looks at the line, “Children, obey your parents in everything.” Most of us don’t [...]

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Difficult, Life-Giving Choices

The scriptures for the Fourth Sunday of Advent are filled with great promise but also with risk beyond imagining. They tell stories of crisis and challenge, of calls to conversion and questions that insist on answers. They demand a life lived on the cutting edge of awareness, a life that risks and responds without counting [...]

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When Waiting Is Difficult

A farmer plants seeds deep in the earth. He knows from experience that they will produce plants. Does he ever doubt in the cold winter, looking at the barren fields? Even in the spring, waiting for the first green shoots to poke through the ground? We can’t see the growth taking place beneath the surface [...]

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Just as the rain and snow come down

When Isaiah compared the word of God to the rain and snow coming down to water the earth (Isaiah 55:10-11), I’m guessing he didn’t have Cincinnati’s weather in mind. We had snow so thick and heavy this morning that you could hear soft little whooshes as the flakes hit the ground. Perfect for the middle [...]

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Christmas Nostalgia

I helped my nephew and his wife set up their Christmas tree yesterday. We’ve done real trees for several years, even cutting our own a few times, but this year they have a new baby and no time for elaborate decorations. I’ve decided to simplify my own decorations as well. But there’s always a tug [...]

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Roots Aren’t Enough

Prophets are gifted with an intense personal awareness of God’s love for his people. Their call both inspires and compels them to preach this word to those who will listen — and to those who close their ears. From the time a prophet hears the word of God, the burning desire is to find the [...]

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Can’t I just stay sleeping?

The irony of all the wake-up language in the early Advent readings and my mid-winter tendency toward hibernation is not lost on me. When my body is tired, it’s difficult to keep my soul engaged. But my own words call me to stay on track. Here’s a bit from last mSunday’s reflection on the [...]

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A Season of Light and of Hope

We have bright sunshine today, which makes it easy to see the hope inherent in this season of Advent. When the clouds are thick and a mix of rain and snow is falling, it’s easy to think that it never really gets light at all between the late sunrise and the early sunset. But even [...]

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An Advent Wake Up Call

“The night is advanced; the day is at hand”—a paradoxical thought at the beginning of Advent, coming as it does in the winter of the year when the days are ever shorter, the nights longer, darker, colder. This very discrepancy jolts us into awareness. It is easy to be wrapped up in our own comfort [...]

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Waking Up

“Light that never fades, dispel the mists about us, awaken our faith from sleep.”
This line from the Morning Prayer intercessions hit home. It’s a grey, windy day. We had rain all day yesterday. I’ve been fighting a cold since before Thanksgiving and my energy is sapped. It’s been good to light the candle on the [...]

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