Suffering
Married, with children
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010Clearly I have been AWOL and MIA in terms of my blog, and I apologize! But that is because not only am I “with children,” but I am now also “married,” as of May 21. Wedding preparation on the heels of the OMG open house, and then moving belongings, and having a “familymoon” with the [...]
One foot in Good Friday, one foot in Easter-lifes theme
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010After the accident, somebody told me that that best metaphor that they could think for me was that of Holy Saturday. They were right. Holy Saturday is the in-between time, that time when we ponder and experience the reality of death–and our complicity in it–and simultaneously for Christians, we live in the expectant hope that [...]
Forgiveness and Overcoming
Thursday, March 11th, 2010I apologize for the delay in writing my latest blog! Our local newspaper covered OMG last Thursday, and I have been grateful for the busy-ness that the article created. A special thanks to Jill Callison for taking the time to visit in the very nifty OMG office. My mind is on forgiveness, these days, because, well, [...]
Does Paul care about and move us toward justice?
Friday, March 5th, 2010Question: A thought I gleaned from someone else: Remember for a moment the prophets, critiquing Israel’s priests: it’s not animals and blood upon the altar that God desires, it’s a broken and contrite heart, righteousness in our hearts and in our relationships. (Gross oversimplification, I know – but I think mostly accurate.) Fast-forward to Paul, [...]
Of love and suffering and compassion
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010So with Ash Wednesday, today begins the season of Lent. Lent means, etymologically, spring. I love that. It comes from the Old English lencten, which in turn comes from the Germanic langa-tinaz meaning ‘long’ and ‘day,’ the latter word finding a linguistic cousin in the Latin dies, which is where we get the word ‘day.’ Upshot [...]
Passion: Love and Suffering
Saturday, February 13th, 2010One of my favorite etymologies concerns the word “compassion,” a word that I hope you will agree is remarkably suitable for a Valentine’s Day reflection! Compassion comes from the Latin, compassionem, meaning ‘sympathy,’ itself stemming from compassus, ‘to feel pity,’ which in turn comes from ‘com-,’ meaning ‘together,’ and ‘pati,’ namely ‘to suffer.’ That’s right. [...]
