Fifteen years ordained and still serving in the parish. Still switching on the coffee at dawn Sunday mornings, still putting out the chairs for midweek Bible study, still riding with the youth group on ski trips. Still visiting at the hospital, still living with difficult people on the Vestry, still . . . . Continue Reading »
For much of human history death was associated at least as much with infancy and youth as with old age. To live to be old was an achievement—a modest victory over death, and one often thought of in religious terms as a blessing. In our time, however, when death and old age so often go hand in . . . . Continue Reading »
The relation between Judaism, Zionism, and Messianism is one that is often hard for Jews to get straight. Needless to say, it is even harder for non-Jews. Nevertheless, current events in Israel urgently require clarification of this relation for both Jews and non-Jews, since it is the subject of . . . . Continue Reading »
The Search Institute is located in Minneapolis, and it succeeded in inducing the Lilly Endowment and six denominations to give it big bucks to study the “faith maturity” of members of Protestant congregations. (If you are one of those busybodies who wants to know where your money goes, the . . . . Continue Reading »
Religion in the New World: The Shaping of Religious Traditions in the United States by richard e. wentz fortress press, 370 pages, $19.95 Wentz, who teaches religion at Arizona State, set out to give the general reader an accessible overview of the diversities of religion in America. He has . . . . Continue Reading »
The rules of chaos are simple: A mountain is never a perfect cone. A lake is never really a circle. A drop of dew is not a microcosm. No. Flowers wither. Dust collects. There is the relentless return of what we do not want. Everything inclines to disorder. But then how . . . . Continue Reading »
That the world should end in an orgy of pain was inconceivable at my conception in the Panama Canal Zone where the hydraulic locks were emblems of the unity of oceans. But the hydraulic harmony was striated with tropical diseases and now cancer where was torrid procreation; day . . . . Continue Reading »
Q. Who made you? A. (Melissa Murphy, Age 10): Who makes me you should say! I co-creates me ev’ry day. My tender psyche I unlocks & with my mental pencil box I brightly crayons, without fault, My very very own gestalt & so I comes to be alert To all my pain & all my hurt & then when . . . . Continue Reading »
As a geographer, I learned years ago that my fellow countrymen are not only uninformed about the location of places and things; they are uninterested and, indeed, resentful when someone suggests that it might be helpful for them to know where in the world they are. It took last year’s budget . . . . Continue Reading »
In the course of a very long life, Malcolm Muggeridge made many enemies, but he surely made more friends, among whom it is one of the great pleasures of my life to have been included. His enemies could be found both to the left and to the right. Those on the left are easy to account for: by . . . . Continue Reading »
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