Thursday, November 15, 2018
When I think about salvation, I usually reflect on what it means for human beings. The vast majority of faith formation rightly focuses on human life and how over time we can conform and are transformed by the indwelling work of God. Joel helps us expand this vision...
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
My college roommate and his family were shepherds. They owned a ranch and had other livestock, but their primary herd was sheep. During summer breaks, I spent time on the ranch. Daytime chores included tending to sheep that had their heads stuck in fences and other...
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
“What idols do you worship?” I asked during a Bible study. We had been talking about Elijah and the prophets of Baal. One of the folks in the study commented that there weren’t any idol worshipers left. I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and placed it on the table....
Monday, November 12, 2018
A parent once shared with me an edict from her child’s sports coach. The coach required attendance at practice every Sunday morning from March until the end of May. When the parent asked if this included Easter Sunday and Mother’s Day, the coach questioned this...
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...
