I keep mentioning the news to people as though it’s about someone they knew. “Did you hear? Annie Dillard died.” People seem to sense something in my voice and respond with sympathy. Then comes the slightly awkward admission: “I don’t…
Despair is on the rise in America. Maybe we need a wailing wall
I wonder if the people who write letters to God addressed to Israel are trying to find a way to reach across the great expanse of silence and darkness for a glimpse of God, like Moses on Sinai. Maybe a letter tucked into a crack in an ancient wall is not an act of despair but an act of faith.
At home in a foreign land
Last Sunday I taught a class at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., the second of a two-part conversation entitled, “Retelling the Jesus Story in a Post-Modern, Pluralistic, Post-Protestant-Privileged World: Who’s Listening?”The topic, sent in weeks earlier, was of…