Decades ago I became haunted by a question: When does a war end? The suffering of refugees and veterans endures long after and far away from the hell of war. If not faced, the trauma passes from one generation to the next. Since 1948, Jews traumatized by Europe’s pogroms have traumatized Palestinians, who...
For centuries, Christians have prayed special verses called "Oh Antiphons" during the week before Christmas. Each verse begins with the word Oh and uses images from the Jewish Testament to ask God to come into our midst as "Emmanuel," God-with-us. Tessa Bielecki beautifully introduces the context for the antiphons here and presents the antiphons here in a form that can be prayed either alone or with others. My own idiosyncratic take on the antiphons, using animal images for Christ, grew out...
What does a kiss mean? It means one thing to a baby, something else to a bride, and something different to Judas. We might call a kiss a depth symbol. Depth symbols are not literal. They are fraught with connotations, allusions, memory, emotion, mystery, history. They’re more like chords than single notes. They don’t mean simply one thing....
The outbreak of war in Israel/Palestine on October 7, 2023 prompted me to post these reflections based on a visit to the Holy Land in 2007. A look at the conditions then may help us understand the current tragedy. My most recent post on the war is here. May those who have suffered most find a way to future healing.In 2006 I attended a talk by...
Here in the North, leaves fall through lightAnd leave last dry scattered whispersAlong the earth. Lives fall like leaves,Out of season some,Torn by storms too soonFrom shuddering branches. I remember them. Lives fall like leaves In autumn.Some rain...
We stayed with our old friend Terry Sullivan Prevey. Some of you...
Shortly after I entered the Spiritual Life Institute’s Carmelite hermitage almost fifty years ago, a friend of mine complained that spirituality is too serious. Amen. Anything humorless is dubious. My mentor at the time insisted that if we take God seriously, then we can take everything else lightheartedly. I noticed that the...
The Parliament of the World’s Religions first convened in 1893 in Chicago as part of the World Columbian Exposition. They met in what is now the Art Institute of Chicago. One hundred forty years later, Tessa Bielecki and I attended Chicago’s Parliament of the World’s religions at Chicago’s McCormick Place. I was eager to learn about relations...
Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. —Martin Luther King, Jr.The people I encountered at Chicago’s Parliament of the World’s Religions, speakers and attendees, were tips of icebergs. Returning home and learning more about them and their affiliations, I am amazed at the quiet flotilla of virtue and social transformation that they...
Tessa Bielecki and I recently visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona. I visited once when I was attending nearby Prescott College in the early seventies. Back then, a gaunt, blackened sculpture of Christ crucified hung above the altar. It reminded some visitors of the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many tourists came to...