Today in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey, a memorial will be dedicated to C.S. Lewis. 50 years ago today, the beautiful imagination of C.S. Lewis died. For many, he's helped see how you can be intelligent and Christian. His writings are a constant reference for me, not only in the content but simply for the… Continue reading The wardrobe that keeps on giving
'The Word became flesh,' wrote John, 'and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.' (John 1:14). That is what incarnation means. It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to Christianity it is the way things are. All religions and philosophies which deny the reality or the significance of the material,… Continue reading Christmas: don’t be more spiritual than God
In our church during Advent we're entering into the lineage of Jesus, dwelling with the stories of the four women named in Matthew's genealogy. As a disciple of Jesus, this is my family tree, my spiritual DNA, these strong women my faith grandmothers. I love this genealogy, populated by wild and woolly risk-takers, most with… Continue reading Don’t mess with these grandmas
So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about - he is looking for us. Simon Tugwell, Prayer Isn't this the heartening hope, the deep gladness of Advent? It's not up to us; this salvation business doesn't depend… Continue reading Sought After
Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, falling in love in a quite absolute final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your mornings, how you will spend… Continue reading What do you love?
Betty and I have been involved in a discernment process about the next chapter of our lives for far too long. It's been a humbling, trying process and I'm ready for it to be done. Earlier today I read this quote from Thomas Merton that echoed the messy mix in my soul, of head and heart,… Continue reading The road ahead
I need to read more dead Christians. I'm too blinkered by my cultural biases and need a wisdom from another era. Dorothy Sayers, long gone from this world's stage, wrote an essay called "Why Work?" in 1942. There was a quote that jumped out at me, words that couldn't be more spot on for today's… Continue reading Dorothy Sayers on the consumer economy
“In the regularity of the office, the love of Jesus springs up within us, we know not how.” The Rule of Taize “The Daily Office stands as the primary means by which the church might make us wakeful and watchful. It is in this sense an order of vigilance.” R.R. Reno, In the Ruins of… Continue reading Quotes on praying the daily office
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, a great and merry soul, called joy the gigantic secret of the Christian life. Near the end of his classic, beautiful book Orthodoxy, he writes on the veiled joy he finds in Jesus: "The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers… Continue reading God's great mirth
I vote for G.K. Chesterton as the grand jester of heaven. And here is a quote to back up my vote: "Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing about him,and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should… Continue reading From the jester
Squinch 