Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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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…
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The All-Clear From Heaven
Christmas means that everything is all right. As far back as 70,000 years ago, men and women were looking to the sky and wondering: Are we ok? Are we acceptable in the sight of God? Almost universally, they thought not. And so began the endless sacrifices meant to appease whatever God was up there. The…
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Love Story
For God so loved the world, he told us a story. Every Christmas Eve, my family would gather around the tree and my father would read Luke chapter two, King James Bible. I can still recite the first verse. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar…
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Christmas For The Desperate
My first Christmas out of seminary was in 1989 at Saint Luke’s Parish, Darien, Connecticut, and another priest on staff, Doug Ray, told me a story. Doug was standing in the narthex on a cold Christmas Eve and two good-looking young couples came to the door. Since the church was full and every folding chair…