Thankful for this post from Jane Grizzle: Yesterday, NPR ran a story about the shortage of Ball canning goods, namely lids. Apparently everyone who chose gardening as their pandemic drug of choice is now worried about what to do with the bushels of tomatoes and cucumbers overtaking their yards. And Ball, surprised like the rest […]
Settling into the Strangeness: Pandemic Life as Exile
Everyone is born a king, and most people die in exile. – Oscar Wilde With each passing season, the pandemic somehow feels fresh and new as it claims yet another area of life that had been previously untouched. This year’s Easter, lacking its usual fanfare, somberly came and went. Months later, a gloomy Fourth of […]
Pandemics and the Theology of the Cross: Julian of Norwich’s Hope
This post comes to us from Nathan White. White serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience, which seeks to connect theology and social scientific scholarship with communities of faith. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Ps 11:3) The psalmist posed this query almost three millennia ago, […]
Defund Your Inner Police
*removes earrings, puts hair on top of head* Are y’all ready for some church drama? Last Friday our church put up the weekly newsletter. It was a good one. Having survived Laura here in Houston we were called on to reach out and serve those people battered by the storm. There was even a heart-wrenching […]
The God of Surprises
Last month, John Dickerson wrote an article in the Atlantic in which he discusses the inevitable surprises of a president’s tenure. Without fail, a sitting president will undergo something completely unexpected, during which their entire legacy will be tested. It’s a fascinating, historical take on the age-old joke, “If you want to hear God laugh, […]
Learning in Coronatide: C. S. Lewis on Going Back to School
On October 22, 1939, C. S. Lewis climbed up to the pulpit of the University Church of St. Mary in Oxford to preach about “Learning in Wartime” at the start of the school year. France and the United Kingdom were at war with Germany, and Poland had just been conquered. The day before, many of […]
When Christians Sing of Hope: Glenn Packiam’s Worship and the World to Come
Among the positive effects of quarantine is a refocusing on what is temporal and what is eternal. Remember the Iowa Caucus? Remember the Oscars drama from last year? Neither do I. The unrelenting passage of time will always remind us that most of our concerns don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but something […]
Smack In The Middle Of “Ordinary Time,” With You
Humans make things. If not, as an architect, I would be out of a job. We make the calendar. And mashed potatoes. And religious rites. I love mashed potatoes, and the Episcopal Church. And we all use a calendar others have made for us. The making of a calendar for the Episcopal Church means that […]
The Plagues, COVID-19, and Jesus
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and […]
The Latest from the Mockingcast: Smokin’ Soulmates and Those Upgrades Can Wait
Episode 192: Smokin’ Soulmates In which RJ, Sarah, and Dave talk marriage models, bored believers, fragile meritocrats, and reconciled congressmen. Also, RJ catches up on some Netflix while Sarah dabbles in prophecy. Click here to read The Wall Street Journal article on Smoking. Click here to read the article about COVID-19 Killing the Soulmate Model […]
Deferred Maintenance: Finding God in the Breakdown Lane
Earlier this week, right before dinner time, our refrigerator started to sound slightly off. Its normal low purr became something of a soft wheeze. When my wife made a passing remark about it, I shot back, “It’s fine! I think it does that sometimes,” as if I were defending the fridge for having been personally […]
In the Name of Self-Preservation and the Greater Good
It seems like these days we get to do many things (or not do things) in the name of COVID-19. Sometimes I struggle to even see the correlation between COVID and the action it is excusing. For example, I could probably say something like, “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back … you know, […]
