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Essay

Essay

The Spiritual Practice of Placemaking

When Covid-19 disrupted our family vacation plans for the summer, it felt like just one more disappointment to pile on the already big heap of losses. But my wife, daughters and I regrouped and came up with another idea. Since…
August 3, 2020
Essay

Food is Never Too Little to Share

“They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat. Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 14:16 The Feeding the 5,000/Multiplication of the Loaves (Matthew 14: 13-21) highlighting an African perspective The Africa Bible Commentary notes the…
August 2, 2020
Essay

Nature and the Cosmic Christ

I read Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ and Richard Powers’ The Overstory in quick succession this month. It was not out of any sort of forward thinking or planning on my part but more because I had one sitting on my…
August 1, 2020
Essay

DACA is Pro Life

The last month has been a roller coaster for DACA recipients. First, the Supreme Court upheld DACA, preventing the Trump administration from bringing it to an end. Then, just this week, the Trump administration put forward an executive action that…
July 31, 2020
Essay

Divine Comedy

I didn’t think I’d ever be chums with John Cena, but then I suppose Covid-19 has led us all into some surprising situations. Back in seminary, friends of mine collected life-size cardboard cutouts, like those you’d see in a movie…
July 30, 2020
Essay

A Calvinist Explores Lectio Divina

For more than a decade, I have met early each Tuesday morning with a handful of women for Lectio Divina (divine reading), a Scripture-based practice that began centuries ago — before the Protestant Reformation and before the rationalism of the…
July 29, 2020
Essay

JWWM: Jesus Would Wear a Mask

Then the devil led Jesus to the entrance of the Jerusalem Farmers Market.   Jesus observed that most people were prudently wearing face coverings and masks to protect from a severe virus that had made many in the Holy City sick…
July 28, 2020
Essay

Old Wisdom

Comedian Red Green of Possum Lodge fame authored the man’s prayer: I’m a man. I can change. If I have to. I guess. Humanity doesn’t take well to change. Scholars point out that significant historical change is usually the result…
July 27, 2020
Essay

In the Meantime

Have you understood all this? They answered, "Yes." Matthew 13:51 Note: This is the final segment in a July Sunday series of reflections on one or more of the day’s Revised Common Lectionary texts, highlighting poems by Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.…
July 26, 2020
Essay

July

Please welcome today’s guest writer, Tim Van Deelen. Tim is Professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. We Midwesterners complain about the weather and I am especially insufferable in July. A cold weather phenotype,…
July 25, 2020