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December 2023

December 24, 2023

God Made Into Flesh

Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck,...

December 17, 2023

Light is Born of Darkness

During Advent season, John the Baptist gets a lot of play. This makes sense, since...

December 14, 2023

Truth is Too Fragile to be Chanted on the Street

There is a saying attributed to Saint Francis that I have heard frequently in more...

November 2023

November 28, 2023

Making Christmas Wild Again

Just when you thought you had heard and read it all . . . "If...

November 19, 2023

Teach Us to Count Our Days

In an interesting confluence, today's lectionary Psalm--Psalm 90--plays an important role in the final section...

November 16, 2023

Is Confirmation Bias a Bad Thing?

Commenting on a new blog essay that I wrote while on retreat last summer, a...

October 2023

October 31, 2023

What Atheists and Theists Can Agree On

If God is both all-good and all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the...

October 26, 2023

What is the Most Awesome Country, and Why is it Canada?

A number of years ago, during the early years of President Barack Obama's first term,...

September 2023

September 06, 2023

What Does the Bible Say About . . . ?

In an interview with CNN a few years ago, Barbara Brown Taylor said something that...

July 2023

July 29, 2023

Jesus Would Have Driven Socrates Crazy

When we first moved to Rhode Island in the middle 1990s for my new teaching...

July 11, 2023

Complete Sentences in One Word

All of us live in a world filled with words. For academics, words are the...

July 08, 2023

What We Can Learn about Trust from a Corgi

It's hard to believe that our corgi Bovina, the love and center of Jeanne's and...

June 2023

June 27, 2023

Why Don’t You Just Admit that You’re a Heretic?

One of my favorite passages from the Gospels is when Jesus is asked “Which is...

June 17, 2023

Of Jackalopes and Loons

I just finished a lovely week with my brother Vaughn and sister-in-law LaVona in Santa...

May 2023

May 31, 2023

A Blessing for my Final Sabbatical

The last three weeks, although a bit windy, have been beautiful bike riding weather here...

May 25, 2023

Why Being a Stoner is a Plus in the LIfe of Faith

One of my two sabbatical book projects is tentatively titled The Freelance Christian's Guide to the...

May 18, 2023

It’s Hard to Talk About God

In our recently completed “Faith and Doubt” colloquium, my Dominican priest colleague and I filled...

May 04, 2023

Various Ways of Saying “Hello” to God

You can either think of the creeds of the great traditions . . . as...

May 02, 2023

The Most Profoundly Religious Statement of All

In last Thursday's meeting of the "Faith and Doubt" seminar I team-teach with a Dominican...

April 2023

April 27, 2023

Swimming in the Miraculous

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older...

April 09, 2023

When Easter Fades, Where is Jesus to be Found?

God is not an insurance agent. H. G. Wells If you are a college basketball...

April 02, 2023

Blessed is He Who Comes: A Palm Sunday Meditation

Today is Palm Sunday, one of the most dramatic days on the liturgical calendar. But...

March 2023

March 30, 2023

Lifting the Fog from Faith

What we call doubt is often simply dullness of mind and spirit, not the absence...

March 19, 2023

The Thick Darkness Where God Is

Most everyone is familiar with the opening lines of Genesis, where we are told that...

March 07, 2023

Living with “Moment Faith”

After spending six and a half decades in the middle of this faith thing, one...

February 2023

February 26, 2023

To Whom Shall I Bow Down?

Today is the first Sunday of Lent; the gospel reading is Matthew's account of Jesus’...

February 24, 2023

Why Did Jesus Turn Water Into Wine?

This is the third day of Lent. Are you one of those people who give...

February 22, 2023

A Tale of Ash Wednesday and Lent

One Wednesday last winter, the student in front of me in line at the little...

February 21, 2023

A More Interesting God through Evolution

It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for a [non-Christian] to hear a Christian, supposedly...

February 19, 2023

Longing to be Whole: A Reflection for Transfiguration Sunday

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent....

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