By Molly T. Marshall I regularly read The Chronicle of Higher Education, which for over 40 years has offered news and commentary on issues that shape the varied practices of colleges and universities. It is sort of a form of…
Preparing for Lent
By Molly T. Marshall How quickly the days have passed since the celebration of Christ’s nativity! We have marveled at the visitation of the magi, encountered Simeon and Anna as Jesus was presented in the temple, wondered with the disciples…
So help me God?
By Molly T. Marshall The afterglow of the great national celebration of our democracy lingers. Inauguration ceremonies offered a vision of who we are becoming as a people and called us to craft a future more progressive, more inclusive and…
Sowing virtue
By Molly T. Marshall I am spending a week with our seminary students at a Benedictine monastery in northwest Missouri. Not only do we participate in prayer with the monks five times a day, we also study the ancient Rule…
Welcoming the child
By Molly T. Marshall I don’t know about you, but if there is a baby in the room, I want to hold it. I want to feel those little fingers curl around mine, and I love the compact weight of…
Making room for joy
By Molly T. Marshall I have always been an avid reader of Dr. Seuss. Long before I became a theologian, I knew that his whimsical rhyming contained great wisdom and ethical insight. He was well ahead of his contemporaries on…
Keeping watch
By Molly T. Marshall I recently heard a child grumble: “Do we really have to celebrate Jesus’ birth every year? Isn’t once enough?” Some of us may echo this sentiment more than we dare to say publicly, especially as we…
A spirituality of gratitude
By Molly T. Marshall Celebrating a college homecoming is an occasion for longing as well as gratitude. I returned to my alma mater, Oklahoma Baptist University, this past weekend to gather with the class of 1972. (My, they looked old!)…
Communing with saints
By Molly T. Marshall Some of the excesses of Catholic spirituality — veneration of statues and feasts that celebrate primarily a European notion of sainthood (brave men and docile women) — have left our branch of the church unsure about…
Flattening global mission
By Molly T. Marshall Thomas Friedman’s provocative book, The World is Flat, offers a glimpse of the rampant globalization taking place as world market forces shape widely disparate lands and people. Historical and geographical divisions matter less all the while,…
Is passion a calling?
By Molly T. Marshall When asked by young adults how to discern their life’s work, guidance counselors (as well as career advice books) urge them to “follow their passion.” Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown, questions this directive….
Seeking community
By Molly T. Marshall A visitor showed up at church a couple of weeks ago unannounced. She had recently begun to rear her very young grandchildren, in addition to the young girl she had adopted, and wanted them to receive…