In a 2009 interview with Rebecca Painter, Marilynne Robinson responded to the question of loneliness in the religious life saying: “I am not sure religion is meant to assuage loneliness. Who was ever lonelier than Jesus? ‘Can you not watch with me one hour?’ I think loneliness is the encounter with oneself—who can be great or terrible company, but who does ask all the essential questions. There is a tendency to think of loneliness as...
Even in the midst of the industrustrialization of England during the 19th century, poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins insists upon the sustaining and revealing presence of Christ in the physical world. In his Petrarchan sonnet, “Hurrahing in Harvest,” the poet, reflecting upon the late summer fields ripe with abundance, encounters Christ whose presence stirs the soul and propels the speaker into communion and union with God. The poem seeks to represent this space as...
I started a new job working as a high school humanities teacher for a public charter school the second week of July. As one of many new teachers coming into the charter school network, I have spent the last two weeks sitting through orientation lectures and training seminars. Between sessions on “Student Engagement” and “Discussion for Your Classroom” I’ve had the pleasure of meeting other new teachers. I’ve spent the last ten years of my...
Long before I entered the Anglican tradition in college, I harbored a secret curiosity for the saints. Growing up in a local conservative baptist church, “saints” merely referred to those who are in Christ. Biblically speaking, this is true. When St. Paul writes to the Church in Philippi, he writes to the “saints,” literally, the “holy ones” (Phil. 1:1). Since we who are “in Christ” are “saints,” shouldn’t we be suspicious of those who (seemingly)...
I love thinking about friendship. Even more, I love having friends. In my most recent reading of Augustine’s Confessions, I couldn’t help but notice the respectable bishop seemed to share some of my feelings of longing and affection when it comes to possessing and enjoying the good of friendship. Though Augustine never wrote a treatise on friendship, scholars generally consider Augustine as the first to seriously consider the role of friendship in the Christian life....
In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus warns his disciples that those who persecute him will likewise persecute those who believe in him (Jn. 15.20). The encouragement and consolation penned to the recipients of 1 Peter deem these prophetic words true. While the details of their adversity are unclear, 1 Peter addresses the Christian communities throughout Asia Minor suffering local abuse and revilement on account of Christ. The first few chapters of letter simply gush...
I’ve decided that joy is a strange thing. We can experience joy apart from happiness. Sometimes joy leaks into our lives in the midst of sufferings and sometimes in erupts in the most mundane moments of our day. For such a short word, the meaning of joy seems vast enough to contain the simultaneous contraries of peace and pain, levity and weight, both longing and fulfillment. For Christmas, a friend offered me a companion in...
Lent always seems to sneak up on me. As someone who really tries to intentionally observe the Lenten season, I hate feeling rushed to come up with “what I’m doing for Lent.” Furthermore, it has been my general observation that those hurried Lenten commitments made without prayer or much reflection tend to be a bit more… well, superficial. I’m giving up sweets for Lent. I’m giving up soda for Lent. I’m giving up chocolate for...
It’s no secret that some of the best books are children’s books. A few weeks ago, I was asked: “If someone were to really get to know you, what three books (besides the Bible) would they really need to read?” (Great conversation question, right?) My husband and I tried to answer for each other to see how close we came to guessing what the other had in mind. Richard’s guessed Dante’s The Divine Comedy, T.S....
The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich 1342-1416 I Julian, there are vast gaps we call black holes, unable to picture what’s both dense and vacant: and there’s the dizzying multiplication of all language can name or fail to name, unutterable swarming of molecules. All Pascal imagined he could not stretch his mind to imagine is known to exceed his dread. And there’s the earth of our daily history, its memories, its present filled with the...
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