Walking on Water The story of Peter’s attempt to defy gravity is told in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 14. Jesus had just finished feeding five thousand people with loaves and fishes. He wanted some time by himself. So he sent the disciples ahead of him in a boat, and he spent the night praying. For the disciples, it was a long night. By evening, waves were battering the boat. The wind buffeted the craft, keeping the men from reaching shore. When morning dawned, they were worn out from rowing and shaken by the turbulence of the sea. In that vulnerable state, with the sky still gray, and the water…
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Is There a Sentient God?
When the World Is Burning As I write this, forest fires in California, Oregon, and Washington are destroying vegetation and property, displacing families, and killing animals and people. Although this is just one more hit in an ongoing attack by a warming world, just one more season of worsts, these fires have sent hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. In areas that aren’t burning, smoke hangs like a thick and acrid fog, making our eyes sting, leaving grit in our mouths. Many people are suffering. When the world is burning, we flee, or we fight. In the face of immediate danger, we’re unlikely to wonder if the god…
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Trusting in the Process
Losing to Win Sometimes you’ve got to lose before you win. At least, that seems to be Sam Hinkie’s belief. Between 2013 and 2016, he was the manager of the 76ers, a basketball team from Philadelphia. During that time, he came up with the phrase “trust the process” to encourage patience in those who doubted his strategy. In an article about Hinkie, Jason Wolf quoted him as saying you have to “start with an end in mind.” [1] That’s what he was doing with the 76ers. During their yearly draft, the National Basketball Association rewards losing teams with first choice from among the incoming college recruits. To exploit that tradition,…
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Jesus and the Holy Fool
God Chose Foolish Things In his first letter to the Christian community of Corinth, Paul writes, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” What does this mean? To understand biblical texts, it helps to know something about the context. For instance, during the middle of the first century CE when Paul wrote, the community of Corinth was a relatively new town, a growing commercial center, with a few wealthy business owners and a lot of impoverished citizens. The society was patriarchal, the men vying for prestige and status. Most Corinthians worshiped the…
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Falling and Faithfulness
The Pain of Falling It hurts to fall. Sometimes, when the pain of falling is intense, we lose our faith. Part of what a chaplain does is to sit with those who have crashed and shattered. If we’re lucky, we can offer them the possibility of a way back home, to a new kind of wholeness. We invite them to see, in the distance, a glimmer of a path. Recently, I was struck by the intensity of the fear and agony described by one woman with whom I visited. She had been doing fine, her life drifting along like a lazy river. Now and then, troubles bubbled into a whirlpool…
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On Faith and Privilege
Wealth and Piety Being poor doesn’t guarantee a strong nor an honest faith, but something in a precarious existence opens us up to religious devotion. The opposite can also be true. When we have prestige and wealth, we depend less on others, whether they are human or divine. Although the well-off and privileged may feel less need for a god who loves and holds them, many wealthy people attend religious services. This doesn’t prove they’re believers, of course. We go to churches, synagogues, and temples for many reasons, not all to do with faith. Still, the rich can be as pious as anyone else. They may pray and feel relief…
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Falling Into Life
Trusting the Catcher Priest and author, Henri Nouwen, loved the circus. Once, while watching some trapeze artists perform, he became so entranced that he pushed his way backstage to introduce himself to the them. After their conversation, Rodleigh, the troupe’s leader, invited Nouwen to travel with them for a week. During that time, he learned all he could about their art. One day, he asked Rodleigh about flying. Rodleigh explained that the one who releases the bar and sails toward his partner is the flier. The other is the catcher. Once launched, the flier does nothing but trust. “When I fly to Joe,” Rodleigh told Nouwen, “I have simply to…
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Faith and Insecurity
Faith in Love What do you have faith in? When I ask myself that question, the first thing that comes to mind is that I have faith in life itself. I have faith in our resilience as a species, and in the resilience of the earth to revive, no matter what we do to her. That doesn’t make acceptable the abuse of one another and destruction of our habitat, but I do believe in the power of life to revive itself again. Next, I think of love. My faith in love is unwavering. Even though hate seems rampant right now, and even though at times in my life I tried…
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In Faithfulness Is the Salvation of the World
Faithfulness and Lamplighters What does it mean to be faithful? Does it mean always telling the truth to the people you love? Is it being monogamous? Perhaps it means obeying God. Can you be faithful to strangers? What about co-workers or employers? In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, a lamplighter is faithful to his orders. Every evening at sunset, he uses a torch to light a flame lantern. In the morning, at sunrise, he blows it out. The job started out pretty good, except that over the years, the revolutions of his tiny planet sped up until now a day lasts only one minute. This means the lamplighter can…
