When I visited Flannery O’Connor’s home in Milledgeville Georgia a couple of weeks ago, I bought a book that the folks at Andalusia had just published: a collection of interviews with people who knew Flannery, and who sat on the front porch of her home with her, to visit from time to time.  Flannery died [...]

continue reading.....

Since visiting Ireland last summer, I’ve come to learn more about Celtic traditions of Christianity (which are much different from the Roman traditions that we inherited). Celtic traditions are strong in remembering God’s presence in everyday life, through short prayers and incantations that have traditionally been said when performing everyday tasks. For instance, there is [...]

continue reading.....

Awake much too early this morning (as is usually the case). I try to receive the early morning as a gift of time — this morning, time to read in an issue of “The New Yorker” that I had started last week.  I finished one piece about English tourists in Croatia, and then began the [...]

continue reading.....

I have been at a continuing education event this week, in Atlanta: the “Festival of Homiletics.”  “Homiletics” is the fancy name for preaching.  I think I do a good job with preaching.  But what a joy it is to listen to other talented and creative people do the proclamation and talk about the craft!  It [...]

continue reading.....

I’ve been in Atlanta for two days, at a wonderful conference called “the Festival of Homiletics” (a bunch of preachers talking to preachers). But the trip has taken on the aspect of a pilgrimage. After worship ended on Sunday, I ate a good lunch, and then got in the car to drive. I was on [...]

continue reading.....

What a beautiful, beautiful sabbath morning! (For me, Sunday can never be a sabbath for me; it’s my heaviest work day. My weekely sabbath is either Friday or Saturday.) On this sabbath day, I have been thinking about the spiritual life as the life of transformation — of becoming who God created us to be; [...]

continue reading.....