I’ve been noticing that in middle age, it’s not so much that I have as many new thoughts as that I find myself pondering more fully a thought or insight that caught my attention — if briefly — in the past. I’m reminded of something Joretta Marshall, who teaches pastoral care, said over and over in her classes: that we were taking in a lot of information right now, in our heads, but that over time in ministry it could seep down into our hearts and our hands. Continue Reading

“See and be glad, you who have nothing! You who seek God, take heart! For YHWH hears the poor; God has not neglected those who are captives” (Ps. 69:32-33).

This is a refrain throughout the psalms — that no matter what injustice is afoot right now, God’s ear is attuned to those who are left out of a sharing in the abundance of life. Other psalms offer praise to God for the experience of plenty, for enough food and shelter and security from war; but threading throughout the psalms is the recognition that we sometimes pray amid poverty. Continue Reading

I noticed something today when I visited a small Catholic bookstore in my town.

Every year or so I like to scan carefully the two shelves of bookshelves in this bookstore, seeing what sorts of books the owners select. This is a quite conservative bookstore which also often features displays on Mary. There are many spiritual classics (in the vein of Therese of Lisieux, not Merton), writings by the contemporary pope, and sections divided by sacrament, doctrine, or life topic. There was little by contemporary Benedictines I know — certainly nothing by Joan Chittister or other simultaneously prophetic and spiritual writers who have nurtured my faith for years. Continue Reading

It happened again the other day, this time when I was reading Psalm 24 in morning lectio. At the words, “Fling wide the gates, open the ancient doors, and the Glorious Liberator will come in!”

The image that flashed into my mind: a large cat, strolling tail up in through the flung open doors of the Temple. Continue Reading

Along our Christian journeys there are times when we are drawn into a conversion of perspective about what faith asks of us. One such time for me happened in 1990 while I was sitting in the office of Medardo Gomez, the Lutheran Bishop of El Salvador. Continue Reading

Rights. This week, the right to “free”contraception has been the big news. That discussion assumes the right to have sex any time we want to and with whomever we want. Of course, men have exercised these rights since the beginning of time, and women, till the 20th century, were left to worry about (or not) pregnancy among themselves. Continue Reading

Because Psalm 24 is one of the psalms we read every day for a whole week at a stretch, this past week I decided not to follow my usual temptation to skip it after one day, but to keep reading it first each morning and see what I saw differently by doing this.

The first thing I noticed was how the earth’s foundation in God is not visible to the naked eye and lies below the motion and fluidity of our lives:

“The earth and everything in it — the world and all who live in
it –belong to YHWH. YHWH built it on the deep waters,
laying its foundations in the ocean depths.” Continue Reading