Faith Matters

When Acts says Jesus is "taken up to heaven," this is not a spatial claim.

After Jesus shared his last supper with his friends, they sang a hymn together. There is every reason to believe it was the Hallel, Psalms 113 through 118. How have I missed this before?

This spring marks the 100th anniversary of the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, generally considered the greatest manifestation of the "Great EB."

The Bible's exhortation to care for the neighbor isn't necessarily a metaphor. We really do have a responsibility to the people who live near our church.

I wasn't sure how many people I would find at our first weekly Eucharist of the term. Driving was impossible, even if one mustered the will to dig out one's car for the third time in three weeks.

Instead of fretting about worship style, perhaps we should be more concerned about scale. For all its extravagance, much worship today seems curiously trivial, inward and downsized.

This month could be consecrated to all hidden preparations, to children in the womb and to those who long to conceive. In February all is potency, awaiting God's redeeming act.

He finished seminary at the head of his class and could have gone on to earn a Ph.D. But he wanted to serve a local congregation--preferably a small one.

We could not get to Jesus without going through the origins of the two faiths that share him. Christianity and Islam disagree, but they disagree about the same Jesus.

I was the only woman in a seminary course on negative theology. One day, a young man raised his hand and asked, “What about an ordinary housewife? How could a person like that live this life of prayer?”

Early modern versions of the argument from design relied upon a simple analogy: the universe looks like an artifact, which implies a maker. But as David Hume pointed out, one would need experience observing universes being made to judge that the analogy holds true.

The deep attention and reverence that Thomas Merton and Abdul Aziz brought to each other's books, traditions and lives undergirded their friendship, and the frank way they explored their similarities and differences enlivened it.

She is foggy, struggling to find the old gifts of conversation. But she knows me, I think. I tell her all of the reassuring things that pastors say in such a setting. "The Creator who has watched over you all of the days of your life is now holding you in those sacred hands." She smiles and struggles to respond with words I barely understand.

We're all perpetually longing for love. Fortunate are those who realize early that another human being can't meet this unrequitable need. Even more fortunate are men and women of prayer who realize that peace comes by embracing the longing itself.

Unlike in previous eras, when the majority of our risks came from natural sources, today the majority of our risks are "manufactured." We humans create them.

So much seems possible when we are traveling. We encounter new people and get to know familiar people in new ways as we share meals, chores and adventures.

Pain is so attention-getting that it can put you on a planet all by yourself, where your face is the only face you see above the number that best describes your hurt.

I noticed a disheveled and unshaven man in his early fifties a few barstools down from me. Something about him seemed uninviting. Soon an attractive 40-something woman arrived in a crisp little black dress and perched on the stool next to him. She seemed nervous.

Prayers linger in choir stalls, soak into walls. Centuries of prayer can make you feel buoyant in medieval European cathedrals. Gratitude settles over you like a benediction within busy urban shrines.