On Tuesday we celebrated the Feast of St. Valentine, a third-century Christian martyr. The two most popular hagiographies about his life locate him in third-century Rome. They say he was a leader in the Church (either a bishop or a priest) who ministered to and supported Christians in a time of severe persecution under the emperor Claudius Gothicus…
Read More“Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God, and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
Like C.S. Lewis, I, too, once considered this verse from Scripture to be pretty straightforward. I can still see the memory of adolescent Hayden writing on the inside cover of his trapper-keeper notebook after a youth camp: ‘love like God loves you.’ Simple enough, right? Then why did something so simple prove so impossible?
Read MoreTrinity is about to end and I find my prayer practices are limping feebly toward its conclusion, just as they have limped feebly through most of Trinity. When I reflect on the expanse of the last twenty-something weeks I see, in my mind’s eye, a desert landscape. It is a dry, rocky expanse. It reminds me of the Coachella Valley: bordered by low-lying hills, roughly textured by boulders, sand, scrubby sagebrush, sheer sandstone cliffs, and little green-trunked trees that bloom with bright yellow flowers…
Read MorePsalm 145 always stands out to me when it comes up in the lectionary because a portion of it forms an older version of the prayer for grace before a meal: “The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord, and Thou givest them their meat in due season; Thou openest Thy hand and fillest all things living with plenteousness.” I love the image of everyone waiting to receive their meal--that’s a familiar image and it’s awe-inspiring to think of everything and everyone in the world doing that at once. It’s significant in the context of the Psalm, though, because it proceeds from the logic of kingship. The Psalmist repeatedly extols the permanence of God’s kingship and how the provision that all expect follows from their reliance on this permanence.
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