Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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What Is Sin, Really?
Every year on the first Sunday in Lent we listen to the saga of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. It’s an epic story, and every great drama needs a hero with a backstory. In this case, the hero is still wet from his baptism, a moment of initiation where God’s naming and owning is explicit.…
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The Yellow Falling Leaf
Question One: What more did I think I wanted? We don’t think of Ash Wednesday as a time to reflect on happiness. Isn’t it about sackcloth and guilt? But Ash Wednesday is set apart simply as a day to ponder this one fact: We came from dust, and we return to dust. When we accept…
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Meeting My Brother in the E.R.
I was already aware of him when he walked in. He was the man whose car pulled up to the door just ahead of us, and I had hopped out quickly to get ahead of him. Who knows how deep the line is inside that door. I am on vacation in a strange town. I’ve…
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Holy Envy
As a priest, I’ve officiated at hundreds of weddings, but Friday I attended my first Nigerian wedding. If you remember the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when the conservative, understated parents of the WASPy groom first meet the bride’s big, boisterous Greek family, you know how I felt walking into the banquet hall.…
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How To Unmask a Deepfake
As artificial intelligence makes leap after quantum leap, we are faced with the very real problem of discerning what is real and what is synthetic media. We’ve all seen deepfake videos that seem absolutely real, and it’s not hard to see the threat this poses to nearly every aspect of our lives and of our…
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The Heaven of Bread
“Can you get that bread out of the oven?” Pam calls to me. “I think it’s done.” I open the oven door and a soft cloud of heat drifts over me. Then the smell wafts out, wave after wave—the yeasty aroma, the malted perfume, the toasted whiff of . . . I don’t know—heaven. Or…
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Just Drop It
Everybody talks about “letting go.” Then why don’t we? In October a delivery truck hit the stone wall at the entrance to our driveway, doing modest damage. For months I’ve been calling the company owner to respond to the repair estimate he requested. Every time I call, the receptionist says Ricky is out, but will…
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Behold, I Make All Things New
On the first day of the New Year I find myself sanding and painting two bedside tables. This was not my idea. We got them years ago at a church rummage sale, and they were old and beat up then. Maybe just call Amazon. But Pam suggested we simply paint the tops, and the two…