“The Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.” Isaiah 60:2 In my hometown, the Fireman’s Carnival is undoubtedly the biggest event of the year.  It’s been held on the first week in August as long as anyone can remember.  Thousands flock to the muddy grounds outside town for the ferris wheel and the country ham sandwiches, some low stakes games of chance  and the goldfish booth that finances the junior-senior prom.  Everyone knows that the biggest attractions are conversations with old friends and the hand-cut french fries.  But there’s always ..read more

“The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”  St. Mark 10:39 Jesus often spoke in phrases heavy with meaning.  He used images freighted with symbolic power, ambiguous turns of phrase that force the listener to slow down and consider.  Meditation--a word that comes from the Latin for what a cow does with her cud-- is not merely a pious practice.  We must often chew long on these phrases to draw out their full meaning.  That can be difficult for us in a world where people try to conduct national policy de ..read more

“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”  Exodus 20:12 I lost my two remaining grandparents last year.  There was nothing particularly dramatic or unexpected about their deaths.  They departed this life after extended struggles with disease and debility, looking ahead in hope.  They died holding the hands of their children.   My mother and her siblings were alongside them through so much of the dramatic change, and it’s been moving for me to watch this from the sidelines.  For them it ..read more

From The Sounds of St. Francis, March 2018. The twentieth century English poet John Betjeman (1906-1984) is one my very favorite modern writers.  Calling him modern, though, may be a bit of a misnomer, for his verses never ranked very highly among the literary establishment.  He was far too traditional in his political and religious opinions and loathe to take himself too seriously.  He also managed to write verses that ordinary people can understand (and often they even rhyme).  He was very popular in his lifetime, and was even England’s poet laureate for the last twelv ..read more

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." Genesis 9:16 My uncle told me recently that he’s in the market for an alternator—or maybe it was a fuel pump or a carburetor.  I’m not so good with that sort of thing.  He’s been scanning eBay and reading collectors’ magazines, because you can’t just call up NAPA to ask them to order you one.  He’s restoring his grandfather’s 1947 Packard, and the old one has given way.  It’s at least the se ..read more

“He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other.”  II Kings 2:14 Henry Ford didn’t the invent the car, but once he got started, no one ever made them the same way again.  Fats Domino wasn’t the first to play the jazz piano, but once you had heard him, they said, it was like something entirely new.  People had dunked a basketball before Michael Jordan stepped onto the court, but now you can’t imagine that feat wit ..read more

From The Living Church, 21 Jan. 2018 The Bible is big, according to the new Museum of the Bible. It’s also influential, easy to understand, relevant to everyday life, and very American. The museum also suggests that the Bible is not all that complex or challenging. The museum announces its presence with a text-emblazoned portal, three stories of the first chapter of Genesis, presented as a massively resized version of the plates used by the Gutenberg Bible’s printer. The entrance hall features enormous overhead screens, on which an ever-changing rotation of evocative photographs signals the ..read more

“God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”  Galatians 4:4-5 We do not know the name of Saint Paul’s father.  This may strike you as trivial, a trick question for the daily double on Bible Jeopardy, but I think there’s deep theological significance in this important omission. We know a great deal about Saint Paul, because he intertwines bits of his biography into his teaching.  Scholars can date his missionary journeys down to the month, and he names dozens of his friends and a ..read more

“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”  Isaiah 1:3 My mother’s nativity set is porcelain.  It was a rather optimistic choice for a family of three curious boys, and the figures received their share of battering over the years.  None of them so much as the cow.  The cow in the Michael family nativity set is missing at least one horn.  The glaze is scuffed off in a few places, and the hindquarter has a long brown seam, carefully mended with adhesive after a precipitous fall. That was my fault ..read more

“And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ…He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”  St. John 1:20,23 We are living in an age of powerful words.  Over the last few months, women from every corner of public life have found the courage to come forward to say: “I was violated, demeaned, treated with cruelty.  Sexual abuse affected me too, and I will be silent no longer.”  And it seems that every morning there is another apology, another resignation of some powerful man.  In the last few year ..read more