On feeling Godforsaken

Friday, March 29th, 2013 Posted in Faith and Life, The Sermons | 3 Comments »

Some of you might like my meditation on what Good Friday means to the parent of a dead child. Here's an excerpt: "It is a great mystery to me, how God can know what it means to be forsaken, and because ...

On the separateness of preaching and healing

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 Posted in Faith and Life, The Sermons | 2 Comments »

Preach and heal. This is what Christ asked of his apostles, before sending them out in pairs: "And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out ...

The heart is loveliest of all

Friday, September 14th, 2012 Posted in The Artful Life, The Sermons | No Comments »

This morning and throughout the day I've thought, in the little scraps and spaces of free time, what I might write here. Then I read my friend Lore's latest post, and I realized that there's nothing I can conjure that ...

The Little Pope

Sunday, September 9th, 2012 Posted in The Sermons | 14 Comments »

Perhaps you've heard of Mark Driscoll, the tough-talking young Calvinist in the Pacific Northwest, the one who preaches with his shirt untucked and likes to be called "Pastor Mark" and writes about the righteousness of blow jobs. In a recent blog ...

The outstretched arms

Friday, April 2nd, 2010 Posted in The Sermons | No Comments »

This is the day when sickened, condemned man collided with everlasting Love. "How could He have called us if He had not been crucified, for it is only on the cross that a man dies with arms outstretched?" (St. Athanasius, On ...

Walking vices

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

From Anthony Esolen's "Filthy Rich: The Unnoticed Gift of Trickle-Down Decadence:" "The poor teach us what our vices mean, because we have not the self-knowledge to see through the disguises we ourselves have given them. When we see the poor doing ...

Because faith without works is dead

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

"The Lord approves and commends all our labor. He desires that we wash our souls in tears, wring them out with repentance, press them with compunction of conscience and clothe them with good works"  (Saint Nikolai of Zica)

Because

Friday, January 29th, 2010 Posted in Snapshots of Life, The Sermons | 8 Comments »

This is why I write to you, boys with me, girl who is gone. I write to you because when I am with you, when I look into your soft brown eyes, I do not have the words. They come ...

Be it resolved

Friday, January 1st, 2010 Posted in Policy and Politics, The Sermons | 3 Comments »

I read once that the historian's admiration for authority affects his assessments of civilizations past -- that oppressive regimes, with their monuments to state power, will draw his eye and his imagination more readily than a nation of citizen farmers. That's probably ...

Really, Dad?

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 Posted in Snapshots of Life, The Sermons | 6 Comments »

At the end of my workout, I see Stephen Caleb coming down the hall. Inspired that now might be one of those rare opportunities to change his musical tastes for the better, I put my iPod buds in his ears. Simon ...

“A heart without exits”

Monday, December 28th, 2009 Posted in The Sermons | 2 Comments »

"My heart only has entrances. It doesn’t have exits. Whoever enters remains there. Whatever he may do, I love him the same as I loved him when he first entered into my heart." (Elder Epiphanios of Athens). This is a heart, ...

Powerless, powerful

Friday, December 25th, 2009 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

The writer who has inspired me more than any other, on the birth of the God-child: "But if there is the beauty of what is majestic and powerful, there is the beauty also of what is humble and powerless. Like any ...

Evening contemplation

Thursday, December 24th, 2009 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

A MEDITATION ON THE INCARNATION BY ST EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN   We confess one and the same individual as perfect God and perfect Man. He is God the Word Which was flesh. For if He was not flesh, why was Mary chosen? And if He ...

On the narrow path

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 Posted in Faith and Life, The Sermons | 32 Comments »

He sees her as we circle the parking lot a second time, an aimless, wandering circle, a time-killing circle while we wait for their mother to finish a bit of shopping. I have already seen the woman -- a girl, ...

Christian conscience

Friday, November 20th, 2009 Posted in The Sermons, Theology | 3 Comments »

Today 148 Christian leaders -- Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant -- signed the Manhattan Declaration, affirming life, marriage, and religious liberty. It's worth reading. My favorite part, I think: "Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. ...

The forever yearning

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 Posted in Snapshots of Life, The Art of Parenting, The Sermons | 9 Comments »

Yesterday morning Isaiah came to our bedroom, enacting his self-appointed role as Mr. Rise and Shine. He stepped on our knees and ankles and flopped about with sharp elbows until he staked a position between us. Isaac followed. Wife rose ...

Etched in flesh

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting, The Sermons | 5 Comments »

I must confess that my first reaction, upon hearing about the thug who had his seven year-old tattooed with his gang's symbol, was that the solution seemed pretty straightforward: a bullet under the chin of the sperm-donor, along with a ...

Stumbling

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 Posted in The Sermons | 13 Comments »

You yearn for a holy place because, in the time between waking unable to recall where you are, and drifting again into the half-sleep that is all you've known for the longest time, you stand in the darkness of your ...

Stranger in a land estranged

Saturday, April 18th, 2009 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

"Give thou me this stranger who from his youth has wandered like a stranger. Give thou me this stranger whom his kinsmen killed in hatred like a stranger. Give me this stranger at whom I wonder, beholding him as a ...

Do you hear?

Thursday, December 25th, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

Some of you might appreciate my Christmas post at WORLD.

What would you lose to gain everything?

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 6 Comments »

I had to fly last week, and while in the air I read Wendell Berry's Home Economics. I couldn't decide if that was ironic or fitting or both. I rose in the darkness, first at home, then on that cold ...

On what happens next

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 6 Comments »

It seems churlish not to say something about what has happened in this country that less than a lifetime ago could not guarantee every black man his right to vote. If nothing else we can be thankful that the world ...

The inner dark

Monday, November 3rd, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 1 Comment »

"I mean if I have any inclination at all, or you, to start being whatever in God's name it means to be a 'child of God' -- and let's say there is no argument for having such an inclination, but let's ...

A Confession for the Modern Conservative Christian

Monday, October 27th, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 12 Comments »

Yesterday I led our church in a prayer of confession, and enough people asked me for it afterward that I figured I ought to type it up from my notes: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us -- sinners all. We ...

On the Unhappiness of Parenting

Friday, July 18th, 2008 Posted in The Art of Parenting, The Sermons | 11 Comments »

Newsweek reports on recent research indicating that contrary to popular opinion, having children makes people less happy, at least until the children leave home. This will no doubt please the happily child-free, who seem to have a thriving set of ...

A Father’s Creed

Thursday, June 19th, 2008 Posted in Snapshots of Life, The Sermons | 6 Comments »

"Dad," Eli asks me in a whisper, "why did Abraham kill Isaac?" We are in his bed, looking out at the darkening sky and listening to crickets. In his bed across the room, our Isaac is already asleep, a lamb ...

On Graduation and All The Rest of It

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 10 Comments »

This time of year always brings to mind my own graduation experiences, which are paltry. I was valedictorian of my high-school class, but several teachers, administrators, and other denizens of public-school officialdom felt it best that I not speak. My ...

Saudade Saturday

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 4 Comments »

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday doesn't prompt much consideration. It's a nothing day, wedged between man's greatest shame and our greatest hope. To the people who had followed Jesus like fools through the land and across the ...

Forgiving Christians

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 21 Comments »

As best I can remember, my first publication was in the high school paper. It was an editorial, of course, and it was funny and mean and wrongheaded. I've put words into the public domain for 23 years since that ...

The Dividing Line

Monday, January 21st, 2008 Posted in The Sermons | 8 Comments »

When I was a boy, my mother would sometimes let me fall asleep on her bed while she watched television. I would drift between sleep and wakefulness, my thoughts penetrated by the sound of Johnny Carson's chuckle, or the earnest ...