Faith Matters

Faithful responses to work, family and everyday life

Tuning the E string

An enduring harmony as certain as the groaning of the world

Jan 30, 2002 by Barbara Brown Taylor

A man I know raised four children with few requirements of them. But one of those few was that each of them learn to play a musical instrument. This would not only supply them with discipline and delight, he reasoned. It would also give the family a language that surpassed speech, and his children a patois that would carry them around the world.

A letter to William James

Jan 16, 2002 by Carol Zaleski

Dear Professor James: A century has passed since you delivered the 20 Gifford Lectures on natural religion at Edinburgh, and published them as The Varieties of Religious Experience. We are celebrating this occasion, my students and I, and your friends around the world, as the 100th birthday of the greatest modern book on personal religion.

God as Santa, Santa as God

A sure way to spoil a perfectly good Christmas

Dec 19, 2001 by Miroslav Volf

I was driving to work when a song on the radio caught my attention. In country style I was treated to a theological lesson: “God is our Santa Claus,” a voice crooned, “each and every day.” The words, sung half in a self-satisfied and half in a whiny and wistful tone, acquired for me the force of a revelation.

True victory

Triumph through the cross

Dec 12, 2001 by Barbara Brown Taylor

Now that the war against terrorism is well under way, things have eased up a little in Clarkesville. A month ago, you could not walk into a room full of people without someone trying to pin a flag on your lapel.

Advent mysteries

The hard job of discernment

Dec 05, 2001 by Carol Zaleski

It’s going to be a long Advent. We stepped into the deep violet darkness and have been on the alert ever since, not only for the coming of our Savior, but also for further assaults from our largely unseen enemies. Two mysterious objects thus appear on the same radar screen: the mystery of redemption and the mystery of evil, both pushing our powers of analysis beyond their limits.