This image is part of a sporadic lenten series by a beautiful artist of the psalms who has taken a break from that ambitious project during Lent. Each of the few images in this series has to do with a particular fast. This one is: Fast from Strength and Holding It All Together. It makes …
It is a New Moon today. The Spring equinox being yesterday, today is the first full day of Spring. In a few short hours, I will close on a home. The light is overcoming, again. And in the midst of all this, the crossing guard is visible down the hill outside my window. And someone …
Who are the Christians you disdain? There are so many reasons to disdain them. They baptize infants. They don’t. They want people to have made a commitment to God before they take communion. They don’t. They are pro-life. They are pro-choice. They resist immigration. They use incense. Their sermons are overly emotionally. They scam people …
Three weeks into the desert… Smith has skillfully guided us today toward a question that also confronted the Israelites in the desert, namely, how do I deal with failure? A people set out with fervor and claims of devotion to the God that has freed them. But they soon experience their own frailty. They long …
“…there is within our inner community not only a wounded child, but a child of glory… the one who reflects the creativity, sensitivity, and vibrant imagination of the Love which is our maker and mother. The enemy of human nature wants to destroy this child of glory within us, just as Herod wanted to destroy …
In the past week, Smith has initiated a probing examen of where we might each need healing in our lives. Death, body decline, family dynamics, anger and rage, sexuality, passion, childlikeness… In just a few days, he has broken every cocktail party taboo as he invites us to invite Jesus into every part of ourselves. …
Today Smith has laid before us the ‘program’ for the rest of Lent: identify various of the inner voices (the many ‘selves of the self’) that dwell within us deriding the presence of God and other within. Hold each one to the light of God’s Love through the Scripture and reflections that will be offered. …
Winter has long been my favorite season for reasons aesthetic, physical, and philosophical. In the summer everything is bright and supple, but for me it is almost too loud. What are all those trees hiding and from what subterranean secrets are all those vibrant flowers distracting? In the winter everything is entirely pared back, and …
“Have peace in yourself, and thousand will find salvation around you.” St. Seraphim of Sarov These are beautiful, radical words with which Smith leaves us to meditate today. It is ironic that they were spoken by a monk of whom Wikipedia writes, ‘As extraordinarily harsh as Seraphim often was to himself, he was kind and gentle …
Last week: the living God dwells within. This week: the whole cosmos, and today the whole church, exists within each of us. Smith insists these are the *foundations* of the Christian life. Yet most of us have not been trained to think in this way. We have been taught to think of ourselves as independent …