I am retreating up in the mountains with my husband of thirty years at the very moment that my friends in Wheaton are laying their beloved son, student and soldier to rest. He was a classmate of my son's. So I walked over to our little chapel high in the treetops and prayed for Sam's… Continue reading Before Their Time
Tag: hope
Faith, Hope and Love
I cannot imagine a world without faith, hope and love. We would be left without the inheritance of spiritual gifts to make sense of life, press into life, and embrace the goodness of life. For this is what faith, hope and love, the gifts of our birthright in Christ, offer to us. Christian faith speaks… Continue reading Faith, Hope and Love
A Merciful Silence (Zechariah Part 1)
Resignation is a soul-deadening, light-obscuring posture of the soul. There is a hopeless inevitability in it that slowly shuts the door to God's comforting light. When Zechariah the priest entered the temple to burn incense that day a double-portion of resignation is residing in his soul. As an Israelite, he is the member of a… Continue reading A Merciful Silence (Zechariah Part 1)
Hope and Sloth
I have been deeply imbedded in the sin of sloth this past week. No, this blog is not a confession, although it certainly could be. I have been teaching on hope and its opposite, sloth--that most invisible and most pervasive of sins in our contemporary context. One of the issues surrounding sloth is questioning why… Continue reading Hope and Sloth
Shining Tears
“But please, please—won’t you—can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?” Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the… Continue reading Shining Tears
Stranded In Time (Zechariah Part 3)
Four hundred years. In the particular span between Malachi and the birth of Jesus, there was a great deal of land conquering and dominating afoot. The vast conquest by Alexander the Great was followed a century or so later by the domination of Julius Caesar. In the east, China began to build its Great Wall. Virgil, Dante’s literary companion… Continue reading Stranded In Time (Zechariah Part 3)
Carla Waterman 