Finding a Treasure

I was reflecting on the man who found a treasure and immediately bought the field where it lay.  His friends and neighbors probably warned him about all the disasters that could happen, about the risks he had foolishly taken—anything but simply celebrating with him and sharing his good fortune.  Or else they didn’t even notice.  [...]

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Finding Life in the Midst of Death

For much of our lives we wander in a hazy routine of daily tasks and comfortable relationships. But when tragedy breaks into our lives, even the most orderly among us can’t prevail against its chaos. We see this in the reaction of Martha, so familiar as the woman too busy with her domestic tasks to [...]

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Seeing the Unexpected Possibilities

Today is the middle of three Sundays that explore the great metaphors of water, light and life, all key images for the baptismal promises we celebrate at Easter. In today’s Gospel, John tells the story of the man born blind and what happens when he encounters the Light of the world in the person of [...]

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Our Stories and God’s Story

Lent calls us to step aside from our ordinary routines, to spend time listening to God, to believe that we can tell our stories in a new way. The word of God challenges us to explore the story of our faith once more and discover for ourselves that Jesus really is “the savior of the [...]

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Living With Questions

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet, “…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and…try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you [...]

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Daring to Be Transfigured

Lent, perhaps more than any other season, gives us permission to focus on our spiritual lives, to take time apart from the everyday demands to listen to what God might be asking of us. Today’s Scripture readings can seem beyond us, describing those events that we might label “Significant Religious Experiences,” things that happen to [...]

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Those Who Know They Need God

In Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time, 12-year-old Meg Murry sets off with her youngest brother, Charles Wallace, and her best friend, Calvin O’Keefe, to find her father, who disappeared into space several years before. A trio of supernatural beings, manifested as eccentric old women known only as Mrs Who, Mrs Which and Mrs [...]

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Hearing God’s Call

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” This line from the words of Isaiah in our first reading has long been a personal favorite. As I reflected on today’s reading, though, I discovered the line that precedes it: “Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness: for there is no gloom where [...]

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Choosing a Different Way

When we hear the phrase “speaking truth to power,” we usually think of those particularly courageous and prophetic figures who confront tyrants and oppressors, often at the cost of their own lives. And while such people are essential to our world and our church, many, if not most, of us know in our hearts that [...]

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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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