I parked my car in New York last night and came back to find a leaflet jammed into my door handle. I looked down the street; every car had been hit. I saw a picture of the pope and figured it was just an overeager Catholic blanketing the neighborhood with tracts. I opened it and […]
God and Your Big Toe
You’ve seen that bumper sticker, “Wise men still seek him.” It’s true, just not in the way the driver of the car imagines. If Epiphany is to lead you to the Light, you must know that the global story of foreign kings traversing “field and fountain, moor and mountain” in search of the Light is […]
The New Year’s Resolution Gone Wrong
The human being is capable of great idealism . . . and great delusion, as these resolutions humorously attest. Resolution #1 2015: I will try to be a better husband to Marge. 2016: I will not leave Marge. 2017: I will try for a reconciliation with Marge. 2018: I will try to be a better […]
The Life You Save Will Be Your Own
There was an outdoor orchestra concert in New York and the featured piece of music began with a far off trumpet–a distant, clarion call that set the tone for the whole symphony. In rehearsals the conductor moved the trumpeter to the farthest edge of the stage, and then further into the wings. Still, he wasn’t […]
The Axe and the Frozen Sea
Back when my two daughters were listening to Green Day, 98 Degrees and Blink 182, they had all the feelings surging through that music–anxiety, excitement, pouty anger, self-consciousness and of course an enormous need to be loved. Pop music gave voice to all those inexpressible feelings. As a father I often felt helpless to reach […]
You Are Not Going to Change the World
Advent is about to dawn, and when it does it leads us into quietness and expectation. Basically, Advent has one message in two parts. (1) A savior is coming. And (2) it’s not you. That is why the images and language of the season seem passive and weak. We are asked to stand down, to […]