Let’s begin by reviewing some fundamentals of Jewish prayer. The mandatory prayers are offered three times daily. This commandment may be fulfilled in private. However, significant elements of the standard prayers have a public character. These are primarily the recitations of outcry or praise . . . . Continue Reading »
“Sing it again,” I want to ask them bothas I sit here alone behind mesh drapeson paper drawn across a vinyl table—easier to clean but somehow sticky,not cold, instead uncomfortably warm,as though I feel the heat of the last patients(old man? sad woman?), as though they might be catching. . . . . Continue Reading »
Prayer is, most fundamentally, a matter of heeding a call and showing up. Continue Reading »
Suggested resolutions that might help us all deal with the year ahead in faith, hope, and charity. Continue Reading »
For the fire that answers the covering dark,For every marriage that ends in faith,For the hand that finds desired work,And for every reconciled death, We bless you, O Lord, and we ask that we may be added to their number. For the wall that answers . . . . Continue Reading »
In Advent, the hermit lights a candle-end,Drips wax onto a saucer, stands it there.The early nightfall forms itself aroundThis little shivering flame. He says his prayer:Stir up Thy power, Lord. Outside, the windHas risen. Rain flicks its fingers at the window.He’s alone. God’s called him to . . . . Continue Reading »
Prayer gives us entry into the eschaton, where we see the eternal glory of the Son of God. Continue Reading »
Early in the morning deer appearout of the dark, a flicker of eyes.They allow me to get quite near, then vanish noiseless in the brush—like stars over a busy city—like lines that come in midnight’s hush and are gone at dawn—like a whirlwind that scoopsup trash from a parking lot, . . . . Continue Reading »
In the ruins of Ostia Antica, where Roman roads have disintegrated into a tangle of worn stones and earth, past market stalls where tall grasses jut from meticulously laid mosaic floors, one can find about three dozen stone basins in which bakers once placed bread dough to rise. This is one of . . . . Continue Reading »
Fiddling with translations of the Lord's Prayer is an accommodation with secular culture. Continue Reading »
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