The Gestalt Switch
Latimore’s icon works in and on us, calling our attention to the plight of the oppressed, the immigrant, the refugee, and the impoverished. It speaks to the incarnational truth, even 2000 years later, Christ is still being born in our midst, most especially on the edges of our comfort.
O Tuama’s reading too works in and on us, calling our attention to the everyday graces of hospitality that acknowledge that same incarnational truth. Where simple acts of love exist, there Christ is also.
Through grace, these multiple mangers change our hearts and minds, stretching us onwards and outwards. This is meet and right, because we know that our faith is meant to be lived and thus our perspective never stationary.
Read More
God With Us
Today is a fresh opportunity for us to think about how we are called as Christians to work to make the world more as God intends it to be and to do that with the joy of Christmas morning every day of the year. We look at the world as it really is and yet believe that tomorrow can be better. We see the light of Christ shining forth from the manger and shining forth in the darkest circumstances of our own day, giving us hope for the world Jesus came to save. Amen.
Read More
Sacred Beauty
That is what experiencing sacred beauty will do for us. Beauty is immensely important to the cultivation of the best of the human spirit and to the cultivation of Christian faith. Sometimes we throw up obstacles to faith where there really don’t need to be, thinking that we have to have everything nailed down and empirically proven before we can give ourselves over to faith. Beauty conveys truth as powerfully as historical facts and beautiful experiences can lead us into that place of wonder where we find God, giving ourselves over to the mystery of the Incarnation and the realization that our minds reach their highest aim when we ponder the things of God.
Read More
What Is our World Without a Savior?
When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18).
What a statement!
Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel (Matt. 1:23).
A few things are happening here. We are being told the story of a birth. That is believable and quite ordinary. Babies are born all the time. Babies are born all the time even to unexpecting and inexperienced and ill prepared parents. Babies are even born out of wedlock to be sure. Every day and predictably.
But look again. A virgin shall conceive. There is nothing ordinary about that. Nor about what happens next.
Read More
Hints and Guesses
When God gives us a mission, we do not get an app with directions. What we do get is an invitation to pay attention, to learn to recognize the divine nudges that we all get, every single one of us, and to follow those nudges step by step by step. T.S. Elliot, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and a deeply faithful Christian said it best.
These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses;
And the rest is prayer, observance, discipline, Thought and action.
Read More
The Tie that Binds
Jesus cares about each and every one of us. When we feel like everything is falling apart in our lives, he is there, giving us strength. When someone we love has died and the weight of grief feels too heavy to bear, Jesus is there, helping us to get through. When we feel anxious about the turmoil in our public life, he is with us. When we have doubts, when we struggle with our faith, Jesus is there.
Read More
