In his Requiem for a Nun, the poet William Faulkner somberly reminds us that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The persons and events of generations past in many ways are still very much alive, influencing and informing our current dialogues, discussions, and perspectives. Since our understanding of history is so crucial...
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The whole secret of the practical success of Christendom lies in the Christian humility, however imperfectly fulfilled. For with the removal of all question of merit or payment, the soul is suddenly released for incredible voyages…And this gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready for an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret...
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Christianity has always – like any global movement – had different flavors. Those flavors are often thought of as denominations, but denominations themselves mask a range of variation in how we express our Christianity – cultural variation, theological variation, and almost any other “-al variation” out there. At a time when one flavor of Christianity...
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“Take Idaho” was the way my sister-in-law Kathryn Elliott Stegall put it so very poetically as she mused over our longing to see all things well in the world. But the world is large, and how on earth do we ever have the ability to take it all in? None of us can care for...
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“I choose not to walk by it….” Ashley Marsh, Opelika, Alabama, 21st-century “Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way…but you can never again say that you did not know.” William Wilberforce, London, England, 18th-century This past week I was drawn into a wonderful, even if weighty gathering, the Local...
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Pilgrims in the ruins. The image caught me, and years later I am still living with it. Simply said, it captured the challenge of living in a world where we stumble in the ruins, sinners that we are, sinned against that we are. When I read Pilgrim in the Ruins, the biography of Walker Percy,...
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