What would it look like if we lived like we are children of God? Wouldn’t everything look different? Our culture, relationships, even our politics? Each week, I do at least one interview about my latest novel, Plausible Liars. There is a commonality among the interviewers’ questions about the unusual title: my explanation of its origin […]
What would it look like if? Read More »
Language: not so subtle pervisions One of the last classes I took to satisfy the number of courses needed for my undergraduate major in English was Linguistics. Taught by the head of the English department in the small college, it was, by far, one of the tougher courses for me. Not because the material was
Language: Not So Subtle Perversions Read More »
Politicians have a patron saint: It’s a joke, right? The young couple’s reaction could well be anyones’ in this muddled, politics-soaked early twenty-first century, when told there is indeed such a person: It’s a man from the sixteenth century. On their minds might be two questions: It’s next to impossible to miss the parallels between
Politicians Have A Patron Saint: It’s a Joke, Right? Read More »
It is good for us to be here: Transfiguration The Transfiguration is the last miracle performed by Christ, marking the end of his days on earth. Peter, James and John are invited by Christ up to the peak of the mountain to pray. For weeks, he has warned his disciples that the Son of Man
It Is Good For Us To Be Here: The Transfiguration and Jonah Read More »
Emergency! Prayer, Paradox, and Matthew McConaughey “Who is your doctor?” The replies to my “I don’t have one” ranged from an incredulous, frustrated “Well, you’re sure going to have one now!” to “You remind me of my seventy-four-year-old Dad, he’s healthy as a horse and has never seen a doctor.” The absence of a doctor
Emergency! Prayer, Paradox and Matthew McConaughey Read More »
Christmas Wake-Up Call: Stoning, Massacre and a Trump PS on Becket Wake-up call? Why do we need a Christmas wake-up call? Consider that for much of the world, Christmas starts right after Thanksgiving. Christmas music plays everywhere, shopping ads begin and the Christmas trees go up. Weeks later, when Christmas Day finally dawns, the excitement’s
Christmas Wake-Up Call: Stoning, Massacre and a Trump PS on Becket Read More »
What is Christmas? King Ahaz “wearies” not just men but the Lord. We hear his name three times at this time of year: In the daily liturgy of Wednesday, December 17th in the genealogy of Jesus Christ: “…Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah…” That so unbelievably colorful and earthy lineage of Abraham and
What is Christmas: Into the Dark With God Read More »
Image Maura Harrison’s An Illustrated Comedy, Inferno Canto 1. In the middle of the journey of our life, November’s the month of the dead “I continue to think that we start from very different places on the question of death itself, what it is and what, if anything comes after it…I have trouble getting myself
November’s the Month of the Dead-Why Should We Care? Read More »
Pope John Paul In Arguing With the Pope, journalist Barbara Harrison wrote about Pope John Paul’s trip to Denver in August of 1993. He was there because it was the eighth World Youth Day. I remember little more than my complete sense of bafflement as I read her piece. How could this man evoke the thunderous adulation and
Pope John Paul: The Duty of Praise Read More »
In the Belly of the Whale: Jonah, The Reluctant Prophet. We’ve all been there. Alone. In the dark. Terrified. In the belly of the whale: Jonah, the reluctant prophet. Just four chapters long, the book of Jonah seems at first to be just another fantastic Bible story. Surely a wild tale, of course it’s allegory, right? And
In the Belly of the Whale: Jonah, The Reluctant Prophet Read More »