Thin Places (Part I) A thin place, according to the ancients, was the small space between heaven and Earth, and if you could find such a space, you were indeed blessed. Was — is — Bethlehem such a place? The Isle of Iona in Scotland is a tiny, windswept place in the western Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It’s a skinny little island, only about 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide, but
SOMEONE TO SURRENDER TO And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. – JOHN 1:14 Let me begin with a quote from twentieth-century writer G.K. Chesterton: “When a person has found something which he prefers to life itself, he (sic) for the first time has begun to live.” Jesus in his proclamation of the kingdom
SAINT NICHOLAS HAS COME A LONG WAY: from being a fourth century bishop in the distant Roman province of Lycia, through innumerable pious legends, until he became “Sinter Klaas,” which is older Dutch for Saint Nicholas; in our day Americans have turned him into Santa Claus, patron saint of the seasonal commandment to shop until you drop. What should Christians do about Santa Claus? Reject him or reclaim him? I suggest we reclaim him. The
The unknown village of Mutalaska, in the province of Cappadocia, became famous through this great luminary of the Orthodox Church. Savvas was born there of his parents John and Sophia. At the age of eight, he left the home of his parents and was tonsured a monk in a nearby monastic community called Flavian’s. After ten years, he moved to the monasteries of Palestine and remained longest in the Monastery of St. Euthymius the Great
During the reign of the impious Roman Emperor Maximian, there lived in the East, near Heliopolis, a wealthy, renowned nobleman named Dioscorus, by ancestry and faith a Hellene. He had a daughter named Barbara, his only child, over whom he kept watch as the apple of his eye. The maiden was exceedingly beautiful, and no girl or woman in the country could compare with her. Thinking baseborn, common folk unworthy to behold his daughter’s fair
THE BLIND FAITH OF MARY AND JOSEPH Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. -ISAIAH 7:14 Kingdom people are history makers. They break through the small kingdoms of this world to an alternative and much larger world, God’s full creation. People who are still living in the false self are history stoppers. They use God and
THE PROPHET MALACHI, chosen in church tradition to conclude the Hebrew Scriptures, has for us both a blessing and a warning. Yes, the Lord we seek will come, suddenly, to his temple. “The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” This passage is echoed in the Revelation to John, when
AN INDELIBLE IMAGE: two pregnant women, one of them just beginning to show, the other round and heavy, who is startled when her infant leaps in her womb. It’s a joyful scene, both everyday and extraordinary. For Elizabeth’s child, we are told, recognizes that Mary bears the Savior long promised to Israel. Mary is, as Elizabeth suddenly exclaims—no doubt after being kicked hard by John—the mother of the Lord. It usually takes a good kick
TODAY WE REFLECT ON A MYSTERY: when our lives are most barren, when possibilities are cruelly limited, and despair takes hold, when we feel most keenly the emptiness of life—it is then that God comes close to us. This is a day for those who are grieving or suffering loss during Advent, lamenting that just as we are suffering, and need to weep, the world force-feeds us merriment and cheer. But we are not without
THE GENEALOGICAL LINE OF JUDAH’S DESCENDANTS given in Matthew’s Gospel follows the history of the nation all the way from its father, Abraham, to the birth of Jesus, the fulfillment of all messianic prophecy, the One “who is called Christ.” This grand finale is what we celebrate in the weeks of Advent. The planting of the male “seed,” which was to germinate and ripen in the furrows of successive generations, was a vital responsibility as
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