Tag Archives: Thomas Merton
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 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 […]
With the eye of the heart
After reading today’s gospel (Luke 12:49-56), I have a bone to pick with Jesus. I understand he might have felt frustrated with those who didn’t see what he saw, who didn’t understand what he understood. I imagine he might have wondered if he’d ever get through to the knuckleheads who wanted to be his disciples […]
In the debris and clutter
How can you live the best life possible, a life full and satisfying beyond anything you can imagine? The quest for that life is as old as human history. We see it in the search for the holy grail, for the fountain of youth, for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. […]
A test of faith
Some people think God never leads anyone into temptation; it’s the devil who does that. If you’re one of those people, think again. God not only leads us into temptation, God led even Jesus into temptation (Luke 4:1). Mark’s gospel tells us God drove him to it (Mark 1:12). When we pray in the Lord’s […]
At the gate of the year
Since I was a child, hardly a new year has begun when I don’t think of my grandfather Howard Fullerton and a little poem we discovered after his death. Let me tell you the story of that poem. In the dark, uncertain days of late 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, England’s […]
When the world falls apart
“When the world falls apart, what can the good hope to do” (Ps. 11:3 ICEL)? The psalmist’s question has been with us for maybe 3,000 years or longer, and today it’s as relevant and penetrating as ever. I’m not sure the world is falling apart – we’ve survived hard times before – but the news […]
The Sauntering Pilgrim 