Faith & Life Inspirational Message

I just read a fascinatingly challenging article about church reform.  In some ways this is funny, because churches have been reforming since New Testament days.  There is even a major period in Christian history we call the Reformation period.  No doubt, some kind of reform is needed, since the church is now two thousand years old.  There is no way it could still be the same thing as it was in the time of Jesus (assuming there might have been a Christian Church at that point).     So we stand still at the early years of the twenty-first century.  Not only Catholics, but most Christian groups need reformation.  It is not easy to reform or to be innovative, because most institutions---religious and secular---are conservative by nature.  Typically, institutions are organized to preserve what is.  Change often is a threat.  And sometimes those who call for change are threatening.      Thomas Reese is a Jesuit an...

The title of this inspirational piece dropped into my mind without warning.  I am not sure what I was thinking about, but there it was: the privilege of possibility.  Immediately, I like the sound of it.  I like packing together words that begin with the same letter.  Alliteration, it is called.  I am not sure when this attraction to alliteration began.  I do remember the first time a friend told me that’s what I was doing.  I had never before heard the word, alliteration.  But I liked it.     And so the phrase, “the privilege of possibility,” popped into my mind.  I don’t recall thinking about the phrase, so I am willing to accept it as an instant of revelation.  I think all of us get these moments of inspiration.  I suspect most of the time we pay no attention to them, so they are missed.  They simply disappear into the mist of our forgotten history.  Somehow this one stuck.  And now I get to ponder...

I very much like Pope Francis.  Although I am not Roman Catholic, I feel like much of the time he speaks for me and for Christianity.  I am fine with that.  The phenomenon of denominationalism has significant limitations.  I am old enough to have felt like someone from my own denomination, i.e. Quakerism, needs to speak my truth.  Of course, that is provincial and narrow.  But that is how I grew up.  It seemed perfectly normal in my limited context.  However, some education and some travel chipped away at my narrowness.     I became interested in what Catholics were up to in the 1960s.  This was a tumultuous time. Vatican II was happening in the early 60s and then came the implementation of Vatican II reforms.  In some ways those reforms are still going on or, at least, being debated.  Part of my interest in Catholicism included being introduced to the world of monks.  As a Quaker, this was a part of the Christ...

Grace and love are two key concepts for Christianity and many other major religions as well.  I can say that I am for both concepts.  I want both to be involved in my living---indeed, my daily living.  I am sure I have experienced both.  I hope I have given both to people.  That certainly would be my desire.  I suspect that authentic life and meaning are impossible without both love and grace.  And yet, many folks probably would be hard-pressed to come up with good definitions of both words and an explanation of how they work together.     That was my mindset as I was re-reading Gerald May’s book, The Awakened Heart .  I have read the book before and parts of it I have read many times.  It is one of those books I always know will give me help and challenge me, too.  I value all of May’s books and appreciate how much help he was to so many of us in the “spirituality business.”  May was a psychiatrist and long-time as...

Recently, I was writing a paper on becoming a contemplative.  Sometimes I smile when I type that word, contemplative, or even say it.  As far as I know, I never heard the word while I was growing up a Quaker.  No doubt, I heard people say something like, “Let me contemplate that.”  I know that phrase meant nothing more than “let me think this thing over.”  To contemplate meant to think hard about something or be careful when you think something over.  I suspect I was in graduate school when I began to hear about it in the sense in which I use it today.     Thomas Merton is probably the most well-known contemplative with which I deal.  In fact, the group of monks he joined in Kentucky are known as a contemplative group of monks.  Their whole goal is to learn to be with God as contemplatives.  Without getting technical, let me use three short sentences from Merton to indicate what being contemplative means.  Merton says, c...

Recently I read a fascinating essay about resurrection.  Actually, it was more about getting ready for death and resurrection.  The story comes to us from Donna Shaper, but she was doing nothing more than sharing the sentiments of E.B. White who began his thoughts about his soon-to-die wife, Katherine.  “There she was, calmly plotting the resurrection.”  White is the author of the famous children’s book, Charlotte’s Web.  This I knew, since my two girls loved that book. What I would not have known is White’s wife, Katherine, was also a writer---the fiction editor for The New Yorker Magazine.  Apparently, she was quite the formal woman.  I enjoyed learning about her and letting her become my teacher.  Shaper’s words described her, “She had a stately calm, a formality, a belief in the future, even if she herself was not going to be alive in it.” I began to picture a spunky woman who, indeed, could teach all of us. I almost laughed out loud when I re...

Recently, I had read to the end of Krista Tippett’s wonderful book, Becoming Wise .  Because the nature of the book is a series of interviews and encounters with people of all walks of life, Tippett’s book is a great opportunity to read a little and ponder a lot.  I have worked very slowly through the entire book.  And I am tempted to turn around and begin reading it again.  It is one of those books I feel I could get even more by reading it a second time.      Her last chapter is on “Hope.”  Since I also have written a couple books that deal with the virtues, I have thought about and written about hope.  Reading her longish chapter makes me wish I had her book before I wrote my own chapters on hope.  Again part of the power of her work is the interview process, which elicits some amazing thoughts from her friends and contacts.  To these gems Tippett adds her own reflection based on her own interesting life.  And to that...