Sunday, November 11, 2018
“Taking care of number one” is the first rule of the zero-sum game. If someone else is gaining in success or power or control, then I must be losing. This sounds absolutely stupid when said out loud, and yet whole economic systems are built on the idea that resources...
Saturday, November 10, 2018
We like to judge more than we like to reconcile. From religion to politics, from education to immigration, we are usually far more interested in assigning blame than looking for healing. This is not a problem unique to our place in history—it seems to have been the...
Thursday, November 8, 2018
The woman sitting across from my desk asked, “What does sanctification mean? In the simplest of terms possible, please.” Normally this would not be a difficult question to answer, considering I’m a priest with a few decades of parish experience. What made this...
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
In the waning years of this decade, wild fires have devastated communities from the Great Smoky Mountains in the East to the Cascades on the West Coast of the United States and many places in between. With the loss of life and property caused by these fires, it’s easy...
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
We are offered two ways to use the psalms in our daily lives of prayer. The psalms are listed in the Daily Office lectionary (and in the daily readings printed at the top of each reflection in Forward Day by Day). If you are attentive to this, you can make it through...
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Jesus is clear: where our treasure is, our heart will be also. I always seem to get these mixed up. If only I could get this…then that would happen. If only my intentions were right, then I could do better. As I reflect on the lives of the saints of Go….(View...
Thursday, November 1, 2018
At times I have pictured the saints like superheroes. They may not have invisible jets or capes like Wonder Woman or Superman, but for me, saints are incredible and exotic. Occasionally I see glimpses of truth, like on a cold, wet, January day in 2014, when I gathered...
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Several years ago, a friend and I had begun a discussion, which in turn became a debate and soon disintegrated into an argument. After several minutes of verbal attack, we all but dismantled a friendship of many years’ standing. I no longer recall the subject of our...
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Some scholars believed this psalm was composed when Solomon’s temple was dedicated and the Ark of the Covenant placed in the most holy place. This is an appealing theory, although there is little historic evidence to support it. This psalm is, however, appointed for...
