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May 2024

May 26, 2024

The Trinity Walks into a Bar . . .

Next to Lent, the part of the liturgical calendar that I have always found least...

May 14, 2024

Perfection or Slight Improvement?

As I begin work on the final version of my forthcoming book A Year of...

May 09, 2024

The Smell of Mulch in the Morning

Here's an essay from late April 2015 that celebrates all things spring--flowers, trees, and mulch--with...

April 2024

April 28, 2024

Your Comfort Zone Is Not a Sacred Space

In an interview with CNN a few Easters ago, Barbara Brown Taylor said this about...

April 19, 2024

Healing Begins with Listening

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that the spring semester is ending...

April 15, 2024

Jesus Wants You to Pay Your Taxes and to Like It

Today is tax day. As the familiar saying goes, just like death taxes are inevitable....

April 07, 2024

Thomas, Michel, and the Importance of Doubt

Jeanne and I spent Thursday through Saturday of Holy Week in a movie theater. We...

March 2024

March 30, 2024

The Day Between Good Friday and Easter

A few years ago in a course that I was team-teaching with two other colleagues,...

March 24, 2024

Kicking Off Holy Week: “I’ll be Jesus”

The Palm Sunday celebration in a liturgical Christian church can be both confusing and jarring....

March 19, 2024

On Being a Person

In her award-winning trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, the consigliere and fixer for Henry...

March 10, 2024

Serpents in the Wilderness

Today's gospel gets us back to the basics. Sports fans old enough to remember the...

February 2024

February 27, 2024

God, Your Boss at Applebee’s, and Larry

An alternative title for this essay might be “A Comedian Interprets the Parable of the...

February 22, 2024

Did Jesus Misread Human Nature?

The Gospel reading for last Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, is the account of...

February 18, 2024

Who Would Jesus Bomb? A President’s Day Reflection

Tomorrow is President's Day, which for all college professors means--as do all Monday holidays in...

February 11, 2024

Basketball and Forgiveness

For someone who is a dedicated college basketball fan and a rabid follower of the...

February 01, 2024

Is Religion a Virus?

The last time I was a member of a search committee for a new tenure...

January 2024

January 25, 2024

God Isn’t Angry At Us

A former student who wrote for our campus student newspaper once asked me during an...

January 23, 2024

What Exactly is a Freelance Christian?

I have been told on occasion by readers of this blog that "Freelance Christianity" is...

January 11, 2024

A Theology of the Compost Pile

In his 2014 book The Bible Tells Me So . . .” and The Sin...

January 09, 2024

This I Believe–and that’s not a good thing

A number of years ago, at the end of a presentation to fellow resident scholars...

January 07, 2024

When Things Got Real Between John the Baptist and Jesus

The gospel lectionary reading for the First Sunday of Epiphay traditionally is one version of...

November 2023

November 28, 2023

Making Christmas Wild Again

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

November 22, 2023

I Don’t Think That Parable Means What You Think It Means

Simone Weil once observed in a notebook entry that “the stories of miracles complicate everything.”...

October 2023

October 12, 2023

Jesus and Schrödinger’s Cat

This summer's blockbuster movie "Oppenheimer" has caused me to return to matters that used to...

September 2023

September 08, 2023

Finding a Moral Compass

Is it ever right to hold a grudge? Is resentment or unforgiveness ever justified? These...

August 2023

August 27, 2023

The Great Homesickness We Could Never Shake Off

The first draft of my first sabbatical book project is completed, minus the introduction and...

August 20, 2023

Even the Best of Us has Bad Days

A conversation heard behind the scenes: Dude! Did you see what just happened?? How could...

August 17, 2023

The Problem with Wisdom, Part One

In much wisdom there is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Ecclesiastes...

August 15, 2023

What College is Good For

I began gathering materials for my main sabbatical book project five years ago. Thanks to...

August 03, 2023

Did He Walk On the Water or Didn’t He?

The summer Sunday gospel readings annually are full of Jesus' greatest hits, including feeding the...

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