Early Advent, just before Madonna and child begin to appear on Christmas cards, I went to the Cancer Risk and Genetic Assessment Center at our hospital. Because my mother died of pancreatic cancer, my doctor suggested I be scanned to see if I carry the gene mutation that tends to cause it. A woman brought […]
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Learning to Hope
“A shoot,” says Isaiah, “shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” That oracle was delivered to a people in exile who had lost everything. Yet Isaiah is not afraid to trust, to envision a future possibility that no one else can see. In January, 1987 […]
Luring the Squirrel
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” When I was in graduate school many years ago, I spent whole days at my desk. One day a squirrel skittered across the porch roof, peered in my window, then rushed away. I was fascinated by […]
How Not To Be a Zombie
The first candle of Advent is lit. Something is about to happen, something essential to life. Yet most of us will fall asleep and miss the shining moment. So Jesus says, “Keep awake.” You don’t know what time this will happen. No one can tell you the day and the hour. No matter how smart you […]
Something Greater
ADVENT: DAY TWO The great cry of Advent is maranatha, an Aramaic exclamation dear to early Christians. It means, “O Lord, come!” The first believers had seen the death of Jesus and received the promise of his coming again. They lived with an imminent sense of Christ’s return, yet they did not see it, nor did […]
Chop Wood
“Purity of heart is to will one thing.” -Soren Kierkegaard Winter is coming and I am splitting wood and stacking it in three sheds. Each log is slightly different. Some are straight and clean, some are gnarled with knots where the wood swirls and the clean grain is lost. Where to set the cleaver on […]
You Can Dance
The history of religion is basically a story of people trying to become holier than God. Last Saturday night I was dancing. It was a wedding—not some dance club for serious shimmiers, not dancing with any stars, just a wedding. But I was dancing, and that’s still a big deal for me. Because I didn’t […]
The Church of the Holy Laundromat
Laundromats are like no other place. They’re where you go, quite literally, to air your dirty laundry. In public. Chances are, it’s been a long time since you had to load up on quarters and visit one. When we had no washer for a time, Pam and I stuffed big canvas bags with clothes, sheets […]