What makes for Christian communion?
The question of intercommunion within our churches today is a big one, an important one, and a painful one. I'm old enough to remember another time, actually to remember two other times. First, as a ...
Rachel Held Evans, 1981-2019
"No community should botch its deaths." Mircea Eliade wrote those words and they're a warning: If we do not properly celebrate the life of someone who has left us, we do an injustice to that person and ...
Faith, fear, and death
A common soldier dies without fear; Jesus died afraid. Iris Murdoch wrote those words which, I believe, help expose an over-simplistic notion we have of how faith reacts in the face of death. There's ...
Jean Vanier (1928-2019)
"Our differences are not a threat but a treasure." Jean Vanier. Jean Vanier, the Founder of A'Arche, who died in Paris on May 7th wrote those words, but their truth is far from self-evident. One might ...
Where is Home?
During the years that I served as a Religious Superior for a province of Oblate Priests and Brothers in Western Canada, I tried to keep my foot inside the academic world by doing some adjunct teaching ...
Language, symbols, and self-understanding
A reporter once asked two men at the construction site where a church was being built what each did for a living. The first man replied: "I'm a bricklayer." The second said: "I'm building a cathedral!" ...
Practicing mysticism
"I'm a practicing mystic!" A woman said that in one of my classes some years ago and it raised lots of eyebrows. I was teaching a class in mysticism and asked the students why the topic of mysticism interested ...
Ascending, Descending, and Just Keeping Steady
Where should we be casting our eyes? Upward, downward, or just on the road that we're walking? Well there are different kinds of spiritualities: Spiritualities of the Ascent, Spiritualities of the Descent, ...
