Another great video by the folks at Busted Halo, this time explaining in a little over two minutes the meaning of, and some of the customs around, Ash Wednesday and Lent. Protestants will note the occasional different in practice, but overall this is a great little tutorial and refresher done with the enthusiasm and creativity we’ve come to associate with the Busted Halo crowd. Enjoy. Note: If you are receiving this post by email, you may need to click here to watch the...

As I mentioned in a post late last week, I was torn between continuing my devotional reading of Luke and jumping to the Passion for Lent and then coming back to where we left off. I asked for help…and you gave it. The overwhelming preference was to move to the Passion now. So we will! With that in mind, just a few things to orient us to Luke in general and, in particular, Luke’s story of our Lord’s Passion. Of the four evangelists, Luke is the one who most clearly thinks of himself as a historian. Not a 21st century historian, mind you, but a 1st century historian who tells a story in order to teach the truth…which is of course...

Thank you. This is my first, last, and most essential response to the comments and conversation over the last week in response to my question and post about prayer. One reader emailed to ask who my mentors in prayer have been. I answer that it was first and foremost my parents, but as I thought about it later I also realized very recently it has also been all of you, as I have learned so much about prayer over the last week. Thank you. To honor those comments and respond out of a sense of gratitude to the conversation as it has taken shape, I thought I’d share a few of the things that I’ve learned and have been thinking about in the last...

I thought this was just too charming…and funny to resist. And just the perfect thing for Friday. Apparently, the parishioners of St. Mary’s and St. Andrew’s in the Chelmsford Diocese of the Church of England are having a hard time filling their pastoral vacancy. So the put together a short video describing the charms of their setting. What’s entirely enchanting about the video is their absolute lack of pretense. They are who they are and they own that with good humor. Keep in mind that, among other things, the lucky man or woman who ends up with these creative folks also gets to go by the name of “Vicar.” It doesn’t...