Posted inThe Good Word

Good Friday: And It Was Night

From Rachel Aviv rsquo s January 2nd 2012 New Yorker article ldquo No Remorse rdquo Shortly after midnight on March 6 2010 Dakotah Eliason sat in a chair in his bedroom with a 38-calibre pistol in his hands thinking about what the world would be like if he didn rsquo t exist One of his fri

Posted inThe Good Word

Holy Thursday: The Words He Chose

In grading college essays there are certain phrases that I pen so frequently in red ink that I rsquo ve considered having them put onto a rubber stamp to save myself from writing them repeatedly For example ldquo The relative pronoun for people is lsquo who rsquo or lsquo whom rsquo lsq

Posted inThe Good Word

Such a Scene

Because I was doing doctoral studies at the time I able to be home when my father died even able to stay a couple of weeks afterwards with my Mother So I was with her when those initial days of funeral preparation and its frenzied aftermath of calls and visits had passed Strange how family m

Posted inThe Good Word

Vincent the Failed Preacher

His father had been a minister His grandfather as well So when he failed as an art dealer and began to reexamine his life it seemed clear to Vincent that God had a better plan for his life preaching the Gospel ldquo It is my fervent prayer and desire rdquo he told his brother ldquo that t

Posted inThe Good Word

In the Grave of the Water

There rsquo s reason to believe that the primitive Church at least some congregations valued ministers who could make baptism into a near-death experience They held the head of the person being baptized under water long enough to induce loss of consciousness but not so long as to produce death i

Posted inThe Good Word

The Art of Fielding

Critics can rsquo t decide if Chad Harbach rsquo s The Art of Fielding is really a book about baseball There rsquo s a lot of ldquo other stuff rdquo going on in the novel But certainly in the character of Henry Skrimshander it offers a wonderful description of what it means to be consumed by A

Posted inThe Good Word

Child Sacrifice

It rsquo s difficult to imagine a biblical passage so well known and yet so utterly incomprehensible to modern readers as Abraham rsquo s near sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah In this age of Tiger Moms and of parents whose lives revolve around their children what are we to make of a story in wh

Posted inThe Good Word

If Emily Had a Pulpit

Lent begins with the sturdy words ldquo Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return rdquo They rsquo re a reminder that the world around us mdash and the world of care and concern we carry daily within us mdash is passing away Like so much of the faith that rsquo s easily asser

Posted inThe Good Word

Such a Stirring, Suggestive Smudge

In this year of grace 2012 given all the effort that the English-speaking Church is currently expending upon the words that we use in the liturgy it is a comfort to come to a day that almost preaches and prays itself Granted we still have to battle our way through the Third Edition of the Roman

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