IN ORDINARY TIME BLOG
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Left Behind
Chances are sooner or later you will find yourself sorting through the remnants left behind when someone dies. I have done this many times, for loved ones, for friends, even for strangers, and it all comes down to three piles: Give Away. Throw Away. Keep. Precious memories, piles of paperwork. Family heirlooms. Give Away. Throw…
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The Gift
Our cat Winston has discovered the joys of Christmas. He has taken to batting the ornaments off the tree, knocking over candlesticks, and playing hockey with one of the Wise Men from the Nativity. The other day, he pranced into the family room, proudly presenting me with a furry pompom that he had liberated from…
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Armor of Light
In the dead of night, troops stormed into a small town in Judea and with clinical precision and evil intent, slaughtered children. When it was all over, there was nothing but the wailing of mothers and fathers and siblings stunned by the speed and sheer brutality of this murderous raid. Perhaps you’re thinking I’m talking…
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Witness Tree
Manassas. Antietam. Gettysburg. These Civil War battlefields are branded into our nation’s collective memory. Museums at each of these places have preserved artifacts and original sources so that we can hear the “voices” of those who fought here, through letters home. We can hear the politicians’ proclamations, the newspapers’ screaming headline. We can “hear” the…
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To Whom Shall We Go?
He listened to his pastor preach a sermon, as he had many times before. But this time was different. The sermon contained some strange — you could even say offensive — ideas. It left him confused and wondering if his faith was misplaced, if what he thought about God and this prophet of His was…
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An Unresolved Chord
We ask in hope, but we receive in submission. Man, was I proud of that sentence. That happens sometimes with writing. A sentence or a phrase appears, as if of its own power, and I say, “Wow, that’s good.” That sentence appeared in a post in which I explored the tension between asking God…
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Losing It
It is the most beautiful thing I own. It is a diamond and sapphire ring that belonged to my mother. She designed it herself when she was all of 15 years old, taking the gems from a necklace that belonged to her grandmother. When I was little, I used to love to try…
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I Confess
When I was a kid, every Saturday afternoon I walked to St. Margaret Mary Church, took my place on line and waited to confess. Once inside the dark tomb of the confessional, I recited the words I had been taught, “Bless me father, for I have sinned,” and listed my 9-year-old transgressions. “I yelled…
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Crossword Theology
I love crosswords with all their delicious words, foreign words, words that only appear in crosswords, words so delightfully obscure they send you scurrying to the dictionary! I love the fact that crosswords are a closed universe: a perfect square containing more perfect squares, intersecting and interacting in perfect harmony. Whatever the day’s frustrations…
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The Haze of Sin
The Haze of Sin I am confined to quarters today. An air quality alert has been issued and it’s easy to see why. The air has an orange hue to it and breathing it in irritates the throat and eyes. There is even an acrid smell to it. You might think that I’m close…
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Moments of Grace
My last post was a cri de coeur , a lament over the current state of discourse. Particularly painful was that, on occasion I found the same brittleness, the same arrogance in the the Christian community as in the rest of the world. And yet, that is not the whole story. Because as many times…
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Loss For Words
It used to be that when I was having trouble writing, the best remedy was to read. It reminded me that I loved words. I loved giving myself over to someone else’s vision, to being led, to being thrilled by a turn of phrase, a clever twist, being surprised that words on a page could…