Wondrous Love/Anatolian Folk Song

April 26, 2011

For the Good Friday service of the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week, I worked up an arrangement of the deeply moving hymn tune, “Wondrous Love,” by William Walker, (1825). I’ve also been working on Carlo Domeniconi’s “Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song,” and found that the original tune and first variation add a [...]

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Living and Practicing Easter

April 25, 2011

From my Easter Sermon: It’s not theories about the historical basis for the resurrection that we need, but the practice of resurrection in our lives and communities. We build the resurrection into our thinking about what will happen to those we love and what will ultimately happen to all of us.  We know that can’t [...]

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Holy Saturday – The Space Between

April 23, 2011

Where are you? It’s a question I’ve whispered in my heart numerous times since death robbed me of the warmth and physical presence of my father nearly two years ago.  I thought of him during our slow procession through the Stations of the Cross yesterday. The impermanence of human life is one of those “hard [...]

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Easter Hope in a Good Friday World from Rowan Williams

April 22, 2011

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has written an inspiring ecumenical Easter letter to the heads of other Churches and Christian world communions.  In the letter he outlines some of the present-day tragedies occurring around the world, but urges that “The victory is won: however terrible the conflict in the present moment, the truth of God [...]

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The Gestures of Maundy Thursday

April 21, 2011

The season of Lent ends at sundown today and we enter the Paschal Triduum, the three ‘Great Days’ which commemorate the Last Supper, Passion, and Death of Christ. These, together with Easter, are the most solemn and distinctive celebrations of the liturgical year. The washing of feet and the sharing of a meal are the [...]

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Wednesday in Jerusalem

April 20, 2011

Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, [...]

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Wondrous Love

April 18, 2011

From my Invitation to Holy Week on Palm/Passion Sunday: We have entered into Holy Week, the week of greatest depth, wonder, and solemnity in the Christian liturgical year.  It is a week full of emotional highs and lows, a week that touches the depth and complexity of our human condition, our desire for love and [...]

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Fuel for the Fire: Take Up and Read

March 24, 2011

Abbot Hugh Gilbert says this about reading in Benedictine practice: Reading is the food of prayer. Or perhaps one can say that reading is fuel for the fire. Prayer is the flame, but you won’t have fire if you don’t have fuel. If the monk is not feeding himself with the word of God, if [...]

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Just A Thought, Not A Sermon

March 22, 2011

“The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope.” N.T. Wright, Heaven is not our Home

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A Better Story

March 21, 2011

Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins, offers a fresh introduction to an age-old theological debate of how to reconcile Jesus’ description of God’s incredible even incomprehensible love with the notion of God’s judging and condemning souls to eternal torment. Bell asserts that what we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes [...]

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