Advertisements tell us, never in so many words, that the answer to the needs of our heart, to the indescribable nostalgia we feel at times, can be found in some finite thing. They get us to put our hope in things that cannot satisfy us.
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The Loneliness of Icons
We all need good days with icons—moments where the meaning of life is abundant and overflowing, when the sticky leaves of spring break our hearts with significance.
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The Shame and the Glory
Rejoice that you have a body. It may be prone to illness, easily tempted, heavy and awkward in social situations, and marked with wounds and pain. But so is our Lord's. And we will yet rise with him, naked to reveal every scar, our shame now remade into glory.
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Easter, Again: Learning to See the Obvious
We got to the place and stared at it. I looked down at the plaque, and it said: “Construction (Crucifixion).” Ah-ha. "Leo," I said, trying to sound natural and not too teacherly, "this is a picture of where Jesus died on the cross." He reached his arms up for me to hold him, wanting to be close to me, and also higher up to see. Once near, he pointed matter-of-factly at the circle and said, "Ok, mama. Then is that the stone that was rolled away?"
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‘Hamlet’ as Lenten Fare
It has been a hard winter in lots of ways, and my spiritual life is not immune to the toll the virus took. That said, one upside of the interruption is that I have made an unlikely substitution for what would have been conventional devotional reading in a more typical year: Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
