Category: All Posts

Thou Mayest

I was struggling deeply with one of my sons.  Not with him in the classic sense of, “He’s driving me crazy!” But with insecurity about my ability to be there for him in the way he needed.  I shared my struggle with a few close friends and felt much relief simply by opening up.  The next morning I woke up hearing Mumford and Sons voices in my head singing ”Timshel.”  The words, “You are not alone in this,” were looping.   I hadn’t listened to the song in awhile, so I played it and burst into tears when the lyric said,...

Deconstruction

  I am in a writing group aptly named, “Post-Evangelical Writers Group.” Unless you have been to church you may not know about the current exodus happening from American Christianity. The 2015 book, “Church Refugees: Sociologists Reveal why People are DONE with Church but not their Faith,” by two sociologists, Ashleigh Hope and Josh Packard, declared that 30 million formerly active Protestant American church goers are “Done” with church and 7 million are on the way out.  I don’t know what the current statistics are, I’m guessing they have grown. My group is putting together a book to publicize the reasons...

Hopeful Reality

I heard an interview recently with John Phillip Newell who has been writing about contemplative and Celtic Christianity since the early nineties.  He was of interest to me as he was talking about his publication, “The Rebirth of God.”  He makes a great case in exposing the drastic change that occurred in Christian thought and practice after Constantine legalized Christianity in the 300s.  His work as the Warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland painted a beautiful picture of peaceful Christian practice.     In Christopher Page’s writings, which I found at thomasmertonsociety.org, he shared this from...