Prayer is not something we do first and foremost on our own. We pray with other Christians.
American Soundings
Unless you're Pentecostal, you've probably never run or jumped or worked up a sweat in church. But whatever your tradition, your church has some kind of worship calisthenics.
Lady Gaga is a Kierkegaard in fishnet stockings. Intentionally or not, she reminds us that Jesus came among us as a misfit.
The symbol of the fish resounds throughout scripture, and it splashes well beyond the pages.
How sweet was the moment when, the catheter removed, I was able to again urinate on my own. I heard myself whispering enthusiastically, with no hint of disrespect or irony, "Thank you, Jesus!"
Outside Paradise, government will never be perfect. But that's no reason to give up on it.
Sooner or later, and usually sooner, conversations about passenger trains and Amtrak in particular sputter with the dirty "s-word": subsidies. But all American means of transportation depend on "subsidies."
Faithful prayer asks not merely for healing but for patience and discernment and continuing faithfulness. By comparison, a superstitious act is easy and instantaneous.
Just as an injured athlete needs to take a break, my friends needed to take some time to rest. And like the paralytic at Capernaum, they could depend on others' faith and not just their own.
The pressure to keep up a relentless facade of merriment is not a Christian pressure. We may not be able to completely escape this, but perhaps we can lessen it by not confusing it with discipleship.
Despite all the attention given to remembering the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, little attention has been given to one conspicuous aspect--the event has no name.
This summer I reread Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison in Fortress Press's extraordinary new edition of his collected works. Letters and Papers remains almost endlessly suggestive and stimulating theologically. But in this reading I noticed how often the imprisoned Lutheran pastor mentioned tobacco.
Grandma and Bob got along famously. They complemented one another: Grandma was hard of hearing and Bob was almost blind.
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