Midrash
When the ink printed on paperfeels rigid, sterile,we can close our eyes,lean in, and empty our breath.That’s when the letters separate, rise,dance in the air like leavesflittering as they fall. We collect what we can,rub them across our skin,swallow them whole and feelthem warm inside of us.The ones we miss formkite strings across the skyas…
Anglicans, We Need Bible Studies
Anglicans are often proud of the central place of scripture in prayer book worship, especially the lectionaries, those scheduled scripture readings for the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer and the Eucharist. Certainly, it is true that a widening diversity of calendars and lectionaries across the Anglican world are limiting claims about uniformity of…
Telling God’s Story: A Review of The Foolishness of God by J. Brandon Meeks
Editor’s Note: While The Foolishness of God is published by The North American Anglican Press, this review was submitted independently, and it was not solicited by the journal. J. Brandon Meeks, The Foolishness of God: Reclaiming Preaching in the Anglican Tradition. Omaha, NB: The North American Anglican, 2020. Vii+207 pp. Paperback $14.99. Near the end…
An Homily of the Place and Time of Prayer Part II
The Second Part of the Homily of the Place and Time of Prayer It hath been declared unto you, good Christian people, in the former Sermon read unto you, at what time and into what place ye shall come together to praise God. Now I entend to set before your eyes, first, how zealous and…
Anders, Young and Old
I knew him long ago—even at first, I sensed that he was the center of his world, and that he expected all good things to come to him. You see, he made stories out of words, and he knew what was supposed to happen. You were to happen to him. You were to come to…
An Homily of the Place and Time of Prayer Part I
An Homily of the Place and Time of Prayer God, through his almighty power, wisdom, and goodness, created in the beginning heaven and earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the earth, the fishes in the sea, and all other creatures, for the use and commodity of…
Book Review: “The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church by Al Mohler”
I remember teaching a university church history course when an astute student remarked that in times of cultural change, history “gallops” in a way noticeably different from its usual snail’s pace. The strident and swift changes brought to American culture recently are noticeable symptoms of aggressive and visible secularism that seeks to undermine traditional orthodox…
Pulpits Ablaze
St. John, in rapturous prose, takes us to the heights of the transcendent mystery in three, short, stabbing syllables when he writes, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:16). This is no mere philosophical speculation concerning metaphysics; no, these gilded words evidence the inestimable value of the knowledge of God rightly appreciated. The Apostle declares that…
The Weakness of Men
The story is that men are getting softer.They break down sobbing, hide a face beneathA towel, after they’ve been benched, as ifA private room of terry cloth could shutOut our contempt. They say that some men areAfraid to lift a phone, to call the drug storeAnd ask the hours of the pharmacy.They’ll sit there, sunk…
An Homily Against Gluttony and Drunkenness
An Homily Against Gluttony and Drunkenness Ye have heard in the former Sermon, well beloved, the description and the virtue of fasting, with the true use of the same. Now ye shall hear how foul a thing gluttony and drunkenness is before God, the rather to move you to use fasting the more diligently. Understand…