(Recently I wandered through the New Non-Fiction section of our local library, and happened on this new book by Northwestern University political science professor Wendy Pearlman. I thought it would be a scholarly treatise about Syrian refugees and the concept of home. Instead, the book has both troubled and encouraged me about what some of us might face in the coming political landscape. I’mMORE...
Quiet agonies
(Today’s entry may be one example of the sonder phenomenon I named in a previous blog. My realization here: How many people around me are quietly carrying agonies of body, soul or spirit, in ways that deserve my response.) Ribbons tied around trees…. In our locale, they’re yellow and red, helping us remember the sadness of a high schooler’s death in an auto accident, and a young man dealing withMORE...
Field Notes: Sonder
(“Field Notes” feels like a good way to characterize or capture what I learn in the moments when I’m out and about, nibbling at the edges of the Spirit’s revelations. Today’s notes assemble around sonder….) Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Chris and I took an Amtrak train to Minneapolis. While waiting to board for the return trip, we got into an enjoyable personal conversation with two otherMORE...
“Provoke one another”
(I’m still noodling about how best to take positive, effective actions to meet the challenges of the coming days in our nation’s history. Today another thought, arising from Hebrews 10:24. “Let us consider how to *provoke one another to love and good deeds.” [NRSV]) Buried in the middle of Lectionary 33 (the 26th Sunday after Pentecost, Cycle B), the sentence above encourages one way of thinkingMORE...
Footnotes for “Holy Spirit as normal”
Footnotes for “Holy Spirit as normal” (To expand the subject just a bit, here are the background thoughts that framed my recent blog about the Holy Spirit. Yes, this matter might be bigger than at first meets the writing/reading eye….) Uncertain times – A newer form of biblical interpretation proposes that much of Scripture was authored, proclaimed and taught in times of great societal stress—aMORE...
Holy Spirit as normal
In these uncertain times, it’s comforting to think of the Spirit as Great Surpriser, or Master of the Unexpected. When we least anticipate her, the Holy Ghost visits our work tables and emotional perches, offering the welcome grace of sudden rescue, motivation or inspiration. A wonderful feature of Trinitarian theology, this view of the Spirit’s role can foster both hope and gratitude. But whatMORE...