I love this video. (And, in case you were wondering, I had already planned on posting it today before making my own mistake yesterday about when the conclave to choose the next Pope begins. ) Here’s what I love: recognizing that mistakes are unavoidable; that life, actually, is about...

After this he went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up, left everything, and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax-collectors and others sitting at...

Warm summer nights are a long way off, both behind in memory and ahead in anticipation. But for some reason I found Mark Strand’s evocative description of one such night speak to me. Part of it, I think, is that I’ve had similar moments while laying atop a snowbank at night – more in...

Some colleagues and I have been doing research on vocation over the last three years with scholars at four other seminaries, each from a different Christian tradition. Vocation, most simply, is the belief that God calls all Christians to share in God’s work to care for, love, and bless the...

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had...

Each week I write a column, actually more of a letter, to preachers. It’s usually on the Gospel reading appointed for the coming Sunday and often offers not just some perspective on the reading but a suggestion or two for how to involve the congregation more directly in the sermon. I won’t...

I’ve long thought that if we don’t reclaim a vibrant sense that all Christians are called to serve God by making a difference in the world wherever they are – theologians call this the doctrine of “vocation” – the Church doesn’t have much of a future. One of the great challenges...