For me, the Song of the Three Young Men is forever colored by the Beastie Boys brilliant, bratty song “Shadrach,” from Paul’s Boutique. The voices of those three young men, exulting at being released from their record contract and making one of the great records of the late 1980s…
Calling on her deep faith, Mary is obedient to God’s request delivered by the angel Gabriel. Understandably, Mary is troubled that she should conceive in her womb and bear a son; a child who will come upon her from the Holy Spirit and who will be called Holy, the Son of God. We assume Mary is a very young woman.
My fear of missing out can easily lead to resentment or envy. In this age of social media, it’s easy to scroll through posted pictures showing people on a secluded beach or at a fancy restaurant or surrounded by family and friends — all smiling bright smiles that say “we have it all!” and captioned with #livingmybestlife…
We are constantly challenged. We are challenged by our jobs, our relationships, and our finances. I struggle with these internal conflicts but remind myself of the seeds God has planted in me. I remember the joy of love and caring and the pureness of the happiness that fills my heart. Of course, this doesn’t stop the annoyance of ConEd bills…
I came away from these passages thinking about desire. “What do you want?” I asked myself. It turns out that this isn’t a simple question. In fact, I came away stumped — I seemed to want everything and therefore could articulate nothing. Not a day goes by without…
We are living in trying and scary times. As I write this the government has been shut down for 30 days, all over a Wall to keep those out who desire to create a better and safer life for themselves and their loved ones. Children have been separated at the border from their families and kept in cages.
After long pondering the readings for today, two thoughts stayed with me: community and faith. In Luke, we hear about the community of teachers at the temple that drew Jesus to stay with them for three days until his parents found him. Perhaps he was thrilled at finding like minds for conversation and exploration.
Sometimes we are all called to take a close look at our complicity in systemic injustices that have benefited us — injustices which may not have been originally of our own making, but which we have enabled through our unwillingness to learn our own history, our silence, or even our active participation. Today’s passage from Daniel reminds us that…
On September 13, 1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yassar Arafat shook hands after signing the Oslo Accord, a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. When Yitzhak Rabin was bitterly criticized for shaking Yassar Arafat’s hand, his response was that you don’t make peace with your friends, but rather with your enemies.
You don’t get out from under debt until you’ve paid the last penny, so why bother? The debts are too big. Paying off debt can be a purgatory, even when the end is in sight. It takes forever and you could still lose everything if you miss a payment.