32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

My niece Butterfly has me thinking about bodies, love, and responsibility.

The last are certainly not first in this story.

Is our story of struggle also one of faith, hope, and love?

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice represents a watershed moment in the idea and practice of what a public memorial can be.

Everybody dies. My mother-in-law intended to be ready.

Even the wise bridesmaids have limited vision.

In June 2012, my Uncle David died. Years of diabetes caused his body to wear out. He was 60 years old.

For my mother, who was 20 years David's senior, the news was devastating. She was supposed to be the one who died first, not her baby brother.

I understand the story better now than when I was I kid, but I still have the feeling that the foolish virgins were framed.

Psychologists describe a "middle knowledge" of the reality of death. How much of this knowledge is good for us?

Public ritual might be construed as a benign relic, as imperialism, or as marketing. Or it might be seen as a form of pilgrimage.

Two years before he died, Reinhold Niebuhr published one of his best-known articles. He didn't write it alone.

Every pastor needs to address the issue of freedom and accountability. It's part of the pastor's role in nurturing a church community: neither a laissez-faire atmosphere nor a judicial one helps people grow as disciples.

God says no to supposedly right worship, and yes to genuinely right living.