The philosopher Stanley Cavell says we need a place separate from ourselves where we can put our suffering. “Stego“, one of the New Testament Greek words often translated “bear”, as in “bear the cross” or “bear up under suffering”, supports…
Read more
Since last September, the Sunday morning Adult Forum group has wrestled with the spiritual progression laid out by St. Paul in the fifth chapter of his Letter to the Romans: “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces…
Read more
We think of prayer as, mostly, asking for what we need and want, for ourselves and others. God sees it differently. God receives prayers of every kind as offering, of self and world. This offering comes, as we say to…
Read more
A few years ago, something that looked a bit like a bird feeder appeared along one of the walkways in the Grace Church garden. It is painted whimsically and stands unobtrusively near one of the benches. Perhaps you’ve peeked in,…
Read more
The prayer that concludes the service of Holy Baptism asks God to give the baptized person, and by extension all of God’s people, “an inquiring and discerning heart.” To inquire is to probe and test, while discernment refers, in the…
Read more
What we call “change” is often more like death. With every significant transition or transformation, for ill and even for good, an old world perishes and a new one takes its place. The new world demands adjustments and adaptations, long…
Read more
The Judeo-Christian tradition is sacramental in character. This means that the whole is contained in the smallest of its parts. The whole of the world resides in each of its constituent elements, and the entire body of Christ in a…
Read more
As January inexorably moves on, I’ve been hearing inside the old spiritual “It’s-a me, it’s a-me, it’s-a me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer…” So, it’s perhaps not an accident that this week I found myself re-reading parts…
Read more
Over the 40-odd years I’ve known him, my friend Gary has assiduously documented time with friends through photographs. They have to be just right, to capture the moment. His obsessive planning and posing of shots can get on your last…
Read more
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited…
Read more