by David Anderson
I am surely an Anglican because I am hopelessly in love with the via media, the “middle way” for which we Anglican/Episcopalians are either famous or infamous. I know the pitfalls of taking the middle road—spinelessness and timidity. As Yeats put it, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Character, Community
used to be Saul, and the name change—signaling a new beginning—may have been the only way he could have gone on, could have lived with himself. We first meet him at a murder. Young Stephen is being stoned for his faith in Jesus, and the accusers who took off their coats to limber up for […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Change, Character, Conversion, Epiphany, Faith/Trust, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Gratitude, Identity, Lent, Mercy, Repentance, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
is known only as a bathing beauty, as the voluptuous partner in King David’s famously tragic tryst. Like many silent women in the Bible, however, we have to work to recover her story (2 Samuel 11 & 12). The king is strolling on his roof when he sees her, bathing. But this isn’t likely our […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Character, Faith/Trust, Hope, Lent, Uncategorized
is a heroine of faith because she aspired to something greater than survival. We only meet this Moabite woman because an Israeli family, in the middle of a devastating famine, flees Bethlehem in search of food. Naomi and her husband Elimilech arrive in Moab, their two sons marry Moabite women—Orpah and Ruth—and then all the […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Belief, Character, Conversion, Faith/Trust, Faithfulness, Family, Hope, Lent, Salvation, Vocation/ Calling
Everyone loves a deeply flawed hero or heroine. Hamlet, King David, Emma, Gatsby, Scarlett O’Hara. Despite their dark sides, we are attracted to these people because there is something good and beautiful in each of them. The tragedy is always that their goodness just isn’t strong enough to prevail. The popular TV series “Succession” appears […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: authority, Character, Faith/Trust, Family, Power, Surrender
Plenty of people, especially near the end of life, claim they have no regrets. We ought to feel sorry for them. To regret something we’ve done is to acknowledge a higher principle than we were able to live up to. Regret can strengthen our moral character: Never again will I do something like that. If […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Character, Grace, Healing, Lent, Mercy
A few weeks before her mother died, my wife Pam discovered that her mother had been married—and divorced—before she met and married Pam’s father. It was a shock to Pam because, as an only child, she wondered how her mother could have withheld the story of her life. And then, of course, in the light […]
by David Anderson 10 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Character, Family, Identity, Intimacy, Lent
The virulent conflict we experience in our world is fueled by a need on both sides to win at all costs, to be right and—even more important—to prove others wrong. We all have the “talking points” committed to memory. We can rally the facts and marshal the stats to “take down” another person. Yet even […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Character, Community, Lent, Transformation