Mar 12, 2024 | comfort, faith, relationships, theodicy
The widow of one of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and now creditors come to take my two children as slaves.” Elisha said to her, “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Nothing except a jar of oil.” (2 Kings 4:1-2,...
Sep 29, 2023 | comfort, theodicy
The Israelites came into the wilderness of Zin. Now there was no water for the [people], so they quarreled with Moses and said, “Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you brought us up out of...
Sep 13, 2022 | discipleship, theodicy
Understand, O dullest of people; fools, when will you be wise? The one who planted the ear also hears. The one who formed the eye also sees. The one who teaches knowledge to humankind also chastises. That same one knows our thoughts, which are but an empty breath....
Mar 16, 2022 | blessing, nature, theodicy
This is the Lord our God, whose judgments are in all the earth. God is always mindful of the holy promise, of the word that God commanded, for a thousand generations. – Psalm 105:7-8 (NRSV adapted) It can be hard to exorcise harmful theology from our psyches....
Apr 9, 2021 | love, poem, theodicy
Light runs out before love is finished — some days, I think, even before love begins — and the horizon blazes with the angry grief of time we wish we’d had, moments we missed, stories we didn’t begin to write together or could’ve written...
Feb 28, 2021 | discipleship, hope, images of God, Lent, theodicy
Your promises I welcome, numerous and good, but the blamelessness I simply cannot manage. Perhaps, O Perfection, we can come to a different arrangement? I could give you my fear and awe — easily; my name and faith, too — several times over; but human...