by David Anderson
After church on Sunday I went to visit a family whose home had been flooded in the hurricane. When I pulled up to the house it looked fine, frankly. Everywhere there was evidence that water had been here and gone. The street had a slick mud coating and the grass in the lawn was matted […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Community, Faith/Trust, Grace, Love
The child had been wounded in a rocket attack in Syria. She lay, arms and legs splayed, on a hospital gurney too big for her. An oxygen mask cupped her nose and mouth. Tubes and lines grew like dark tendrils from her arms. I turn the newspaper page. Next article. I’m looking for stories […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Community, Family, Love
Watching Felix Baumgartner’s jump from 24 miles up at the edge of space I’m reminded of how basic is that fear of falling. As I watched the video I had two, opposite reactions. What must it be like to leap from such magisterial heights? (What is it that makes us back away from precarious heights […]
by David Anderson 1 Comment Filed Under: Faith/Trust, Fear, Freedom, Happiness, Letting Go, Love, Reality--trusting it
It’s hard to believe, but in the first part of the twentieth century, psychologists and doctors were suspicious of nurses who wanted to pick up newborn infants in the hospital nursery and hold them. Some doctors observed that infants who were picked up by nurses got sick, and concluded that the close contact had transmitted […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Faith/Trust, Family, Intimacy, Love
When I walked into the grocery store, he was standing by the door. I’d never seen him before, but he was wearing a uniform and I knew he was an employee. I said an average hello, and he responded with a hello so happy it startled me. Then he handed me a shopping basket. I […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Community, Happiness, Intimacy, Love
This is called “The Best Poem in the World,” which isn’t true. But it is the best doggerel in the world. Read it and see if you don’t agree. The Best Poem in the World I was shocked, confused, bewildered as I entered Heaven’s door, Not by the beauty of it all, by the lights or […]
by David Anderson 13 Comments Filed Under: Faith/Trust, Grace, Heaven, Love, Mercy
On Thursday afternoon at 3:30 in a small hospital room in the Bronx, I opened my Prayer Book and prayed “Ministration at the Time of Death.” It broke my heart to turn to page 462. But Gay was dying before our eyes, and now was the Time. On Wednesday afternoon—just the day before—I had sat […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Love, Now/ the Present, Seeing
“I was playing golf with a friend,” the man said to me yesterday. “And he said—it must’ve been at the 14th hole, I think—he said, ‘John, do you believe in hell?” He put the club down and asked why such a question. The friend explained that his daughter had been blessed with her first baby, […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Faithfulness, Fear, Grace, Love