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November 2018

November 29, 2018

Trailing Clouds of Glory, We Come From God

As we approach the Advent and Christmas seasons, I am in a forward-looking and hopeful...

November 13, 2018

A Foreign Widow, Seduction, and the Book of Ruth

One of my favorite features of liturgical worship is encountering familiar and favorite texts during...

November 11, 2018

Teach Us to Care and Not to Care

I began Election Day last Tuesday at the gym, riding the stationary bike for an...

November 09, 2018

Am I My Neighbor’s Keeper?

Thanks to the caravan of refugees moving north, President Trump's choice to stoke up fears...

October 2018

October 28, 2018

The Life of Faith is Not a Fairy Tale

The first lectionary reading at church the past three Sundays have been from one of...

October 11, 2018

How to Live Autumn

Autumn is my favorite season, and October is my favorite month. This is not surprising...

October 07, 2018

It Don’t Matter

It's been a rough couple of months at our house, as two members of the...

September 2018

September 20, 2018

Calling God Back to the Mountain

What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are they not both...

September 09, 2018

Right-Brain Faith in a Left-Brain World

At age thirty-seven, Harvard trained brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor woke up one morning with...

September 06, 2018

What the Author Meant May Not Matter

At the beginning of a seminar on the books of Exodus and Job from the...

August 2018

August 23, 2018

Getting Over Original Sin

Last Tuesday, on the sixth anniversary of my blog, I posted my first blog post--an...

August 09, 2018

To Live In Safety and Without Fear

Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall...

August 02, 2018

The Whatevers

Although I regularly find myself immersed in things medieval with a bunch of freshmen every...

July 2018

July 26, 2018

The Never-Ending Prayer

As I do initial work on my new book on prayer (contract now signed!), I...

July 05, 2018

To Whom Do You Belong?

A couple of years ago, my college celebrated its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the...

June 2018

June 17, 2018

When to Be Skeptical, and When to Believe

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the...

June 07, 2018

I Pardon You

Pardons are in the news, particularly Presidential pardons. Presidential pardons are nothing new, and everyone...

May 2018

May 15, 2018

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again. “The Sound of Silence”...

May 10, 2018

The Crooked Timber of Faith

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Immanuel Kant...

April 2018

April 22, 2018

How Do I Get There?–A Reflection for Good Shepherd Sunday

Tomorrow is "Good Shepherd Sunday," including the 23rd Psalm--a text so familiar that it is...

April 17, 2018

The Best Story Ever

In the aftermath of Easter, Christians often enjoy retelling various stories about Jesus from the...

April 12, 2018

Just the Facts

I drove past a billboard not long ago that raised my blood pressure a bit....

March 2018

March 15, 2018

The Christian Faith In a Nutshell

Sports fans old enough to remember the 70s and 80s will recall that a regular...

March 13, 2018

Dr. Seuss, an Unborn Child, and Why Each Of Us Matters

Dr. Seuss was a regular in our house when my sons were young—my thirty-something sons...

March 01, 2018

A More Plausible God

In a couple of weeks, we will be starting a unit in my General Ethics...

February 2018

February 16, 2018

Look, Don’t Touch

Almost every Sunday during the months I spent on sabbatical a few years ago in...

February 01, 2018

Deflategate and the Nazis

Exactly three years ago, on the morning of Super Bowl 49, I wrote a blog...

January 2018

January 28, 2018

Changing the Water

A few weeks ago, Jeanne said “I want a fish.” This was a rather random...

January 18, 2018

What Do You Want?

Anyone who reads this blog regularly or even occasionally knows that I love movies. Solidly...

January 14, 2018

Piercing the Silence

Every religion which does not confirm that God is hidden is not true. Blaise Pascal...

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