by David Anderson
I love the story of the family driving to grandpa and grandma’s for a Christmas get-together. As they passed the Episcopal church where a manger scene was in the yard, the five-year old boy asked about the meaning. “That is Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus, there in the manger,” the mother explained. A few […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Faith/Trust, Grace
It is Christmas Eve, the night when God comes for us, comes in the only way we could receive God-with-us. If the infinite God is to reach us finite humans, there will have to be some translation, some accommodation. And all the work will have to be on God’s part. There is an affecting story, […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Grace, Gratitude, Love, Mercy
Thanksgiving is always about bounty, cornucopia, an overflowing with excess. Yet many of us are not feeling cornucopian these days. For some few at the top the bounty is flowing, but the rest of us are still struggling. We’re not feeling the Thanksgiving. In the gospels Jesus tells us, “Do not worry about your life, […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Abundance, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness
It is easy to allow our spiritual quest to lead us into self-gratification. It has always been the perennial problem associated with “spiritual growth.” This story is told of the sage Ramakrishna. Once a man came to Ramakrishna, sitting on the banks of the Ganges. “Master,” he called to Ramakrishna, “Look! After fourteen years of […]
by David Anderson 1 Comment Filed Under: Grace, Service
(It’s All Saints Day.) The saints are always those who are able to do deeds of power—sometimes great things and sometimes very small things, but powerful works. Sometimes their mere presence creates blessing and peace. Goodness follows in their wake. They are like Jesus who “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). This goodness, though, easily […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Death/Dying, Faith/Trust, Grace, Letting Go, Repentance, Uncategorized, Vocation/ Calling
Yesterday I sat in the second pew at St. Stephen’s church in Richmond, Virginia. There to speak later in the morning, I was worshiping at the 9 o’clock Eucharist. My friend Gary Jones preached—masterfully—on that well-known parable from Luke. Two men go up to the temple to pray, a Pharisee and a tax collector. The […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Forgiveness, Grace, Uncategorized
The church is “obsessed” with abortion, homosexuality and birth control. That comment by Pope Francis a few days ago made global headlines. It’s no mistake that all three bugbears are physical, of the body, sexual. Little-mind religion seizes on the carnal sins and makes avoiding them a cardinal virtue. That’s because it is mostly preoccupied […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Forgiveness, Grace, Mercy
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Ernest Hemingway Dear Ernest, You are quite right. Very often, intelligent people are very unhappy—especially if by intelligence you mean only that narrow band of knowing lodged in the brain. For about four hundred years now, at least in our Western culture, that kind of […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Faith/Trust, Grace, Happiness, Letting Go, Love, Reality--trusting it, Suffering, Surrender