As for me, to be near to God is my happiness. Pss. 73:28 One of the interesting things about watching people relate to each other is what kind of space or distance they maintain while interacting. Sometimes there’s barely a hair’s breadth of separation (as it was among my Italian relatives and Jewish friends). Boundaries...... Read More

A slave does not remain in the household, but the children belong to it forever. John 8:36 In case you weren’t around, I had a cranky week to begin the month of May. Our new home is missing any semblance of landscaping, and the weather has prevented the situation from improving. Several encounters with customer...... Read More

A Canaanite woman from that area came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me, for my daughter suffers terribly from demon-possession.’ But Jesus did not answer a word. Mat. 15:22-23 To paraphrase the author of John’s Gospel, “If all the things that people have said about prayer were written down,...... Read More

4 The goodness and kindness of God our savior appeared to save us, not because we did anything righteous, but because he is merciful. He cleansed us, made us alive, and created us anew by the Holy Spirit, whom he gives to us without measure. This is all through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who makes...... Read More

In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of the Lord carried them. (Is. 63:9). I’ve spent two posts tip-toeing up to and around this question of what is real and how we can tend to escape into fantasy rather than live in reality – the reality of who we are, what we...... Read More

So we don’t look at the things that we see, but at what we don’t see, since what we see passes away, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). One of the great existential issues that humans have debated since forever is the question of what is real. I’m sure that many of...... Read More

“By faith, Abraham heard the call to leave his home for the place he would receive as his inheritance, even though he didn’t know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:18). To me, the most obviously difficult aspects of faith are its unknowingness and seeming invisibility. The story of Abraham is cautionary and emblematic. Every piece...... Read More

The Alelyon (one another) passages in the New Testament: Do not lie to each other but speak the truth to each other in love. (Ephesians 4:14, 25; Colossians 3:9) – Part 3 In Book 7 of his Confessions, the early church writer Augustine speaks of discovering that all that is true in the world comes...... Read More

The Alelyon (one another) passages in the New Testament: Don’t bite and devour each other, or else you will end up destroying each other (Gal. 5:15), part 3 Our daughter Annie is spending most of this summer volunteering at an orphanage for special needs children. One early morning a few weeks ago I answered my...... Read More

The Alelyon (one another) passages in the New Testament: Don’t bite and devour each other, or else you will end up destroying each other (Gal. 5:15), part 2 I have always been grateful that neither of our kids were biters. This is, of course, a good thing in and of itself. None of us is...... Read More