Author Archives: Rich Neal
Reframing Lent
It’s time to reframe the season of Lent. The way we usually define it is not wrong, if you hold the traditional Latin view of God as an “original sin” kind of god who holds loving grace in one hand while holding punishment and rejection in the other – the hope of heaven and the […]
The spring of life
I was mulling over what I would say to you today when I met Steven Spielberg for lunch and we started talking about his latest movie, The Fablemans. The film unlocks the meaning of most of Spielberg’s earlier movies – E.T. and Close Encounters, Jaws and Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones films, Schindler’s List, Saving […]
Questions worth living
One of the questions I asked three weeks ago was, “What is your most urgent question?” Your responses were more than interesting. They were thoughtful and engaging, curious in a way that might launch a serious and fruitful exploration of faith. And they expressed the deep yearning for God I believe St. Augustine had in […]
Another cup of coffee
“For what it’s worth,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “it’s never too late . . . to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I […]
Three Rs for today
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart. (Joel 2:12a) Seldom has a question caught my attention as suddenly and completely as the one I overheard on a busy street in Manhattan forty years ago. I had spent the day in Midtown and was headed to catch a bus for […]
Faith like a sparkling drop
No one knows what happened in the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matt. 17:1-9). Deep truths are elusive and almost always wrapped in mystery – from the Greek mustēs, “secret,” something we’re not supposed to talk about in public. Maybe we’re not supposed to talk about the Transfiguration, and maybe that’s why, after the disciples witnessed it, […]
The choice
It has been called “the most misread poem in America” (David Orr, The Atlantic, 19 May 2018). The poem is Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” and Frost seems to have shared that opinion. He warned his readers, “You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem – very tricky.” The way […]
That final trip home
My resolve not to return to Missouri for a visit started to waver months ago as I considered a retrospective (final?) tour of the turf where my family roots are sunk deep. I recalled how grounded I felt in 2019 when I last wandered the hills and homesteads my paternal family line has called home […]
You are the light of the world
Last week I said that, although there is so much darkness in the world around us, it’s not a world of complete darkness; a light shines, which the darkness will not overcome. That light is the light of love, I said, and we are its torches. Today in Matthew’s gospel we hear Jesus say the […]
Through the lens of love
According to Thomas Moore, teacher, psychotherapist, and author of the New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul, slight shifts in imagination have more impact on living than major efforts at change. Deep changes in life follow shifts in imagination. Jesus said the fulfillment of your deepest dreams and God’s greatest promises – the kingdom […]
The Sauntering Pilgrim 