Trappist monk Thomas Merton suggested that each of us is a particular word spoken by God, bringing a particular communication to the world as we live into that word through our lives.  What is the word you are living?  I have sometimes posed the question to my...

A favorite poem of mine by Wendell Berry, “The Mad Farmer Manifesto,” describes what life looks like in the wake of the overwhelming events of Easter and its story of resurrection. Berry imagines how we would act differently if we truly believed in resurrection, truly...

These weeks in April usher in the major religious holidays of Passover and Easter, when the Jewish tradition marks its central experience of liberation from slavery and the ensuing journey to the Promised Land, and the Christian tradition marks its central experience...

The season of Lent is underway in traditional churches, along with the tired jokes about doing without chocolate and other small excesses for the next six weeks. While giving up something can always be a useful exercise at any time, helping me see where my attachments...

One of my Christmas gifts from a friend was a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel Unsheltered.  Since finishing it, I find myself thinking quite a lot about a primary theme in the novel, a theme given expression in debates among the characters and in settings...

More than one commentator has noted how we seem to have entered a time of not only greater fear, but a different response to fear than has usually been present. History presents us with national leaders who urged people to be brave in confronting fear, to refuse to...

I remember a conversation with a friend once when we were comparing books we had recently read that we enjoyed. At one point I mentioned a popular novel that I had plowed all the way through even though I disliked the book. Startled, she asked why on earth I would...

There was a time when obedience was an element of myriad relationships, from married couples in which wives promised to obey husbands, to feudal relationships in which those who were poor were expected to obey their wealthy superiors, to families in which children...

I recently delved into a theological article on our current national state of polarization, hoping to read insights that would help me understand—and, yes, get the better of—those who I see fueling the polarization with inflammatory and intolerant attitudes.  Much to...

Perhaps because I grew up in a large family that lived in a small house, or perhaps because I seem to gravitate towards extraverted, loquacious people for partners and friends, I have made finding silence a priority throughout most of my life.  As a child in that...