How do monarch butterflies know the precise route of their migration, when it takes more than a generation of butterflies to complete it? How did the stonemasons who built the cathedrals of Europe know how their generation’s part of the work fit into the plan of the whole great structure without blueprints, over the course … read more
Twenty-five years ago, while doing some research on the dazzling Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, I came across a catalogue for an exhibition of daily objects from the households of early Christians: wooden spoons carved with grapes, a simple linen tunic with a woven pattern of wheat in the hem, a plate with a painted fish. […]
Photo courtesy of Dayna DeHoyos The other morning, I was picking up the newspaper and filling the birdfeeder before dawn when I sensed someone quite near, staring at me in the darkness. When I turned to look, I saw the dark mass of a deer with a huge rack of antlers, frozen in place, staring […]
Readings Ecclesiasticus 44:1–10, 13–14 Psalm 149 Luke 6:20–26
As we’ve shuddered through church shootings, school shootings, package bombs; accounts of people hiding underground for their lives in Ghouta, Syria; threats, counter-threats, and rapprochement with North Korea, this Lenten season has seemed to be headed squarely toward Holy Week all along, destined for a violent crucifixion. But it has been less obvious to […]
<<Return to Advent Meditations page Psalm 146, 147; 111, 112, 113; Amos 1:1-5, 13-2:8; Luke 21:5-19; 1 Thess. 5:1-11 The apocalyptic visions we are given to read today are full of dramatic intensity, of terrifying sights and sounds. These visions are included in the scriptures not simply to inform us, but to express the moral […]
The enormous, irregular standing-stone that is Freethinkers’ Rock rises at the edge of Turkey Bottom Creek on ranch land in the Texas Hill Country currently being developed by the YMCA into a place for children and adults to be immersed in the natural world. My friend Jill took a group of us to explore the […]
Today we were fed the bread of heaven at dawn in the desert. Cynthia presided as the desert slowly woke, a palette of pale rose and lavender, her words threaded with birdsong. – Jane Two pilgrims (Jane Patterson and Richelle Thompson) waiting on the sunrise over the Judean desert. – John
We had the honor of meeting with the Most Rev. Suheil Dawani, of praying for his ministry, and of receiving his blessing on our pilgrims. – Jane Our librarian, Yvonne Beever, digging history! – Jane
Rising seniors, Richelle Thompson and Reagan Gonzalez, dressed for the Western Wall and Temple Mount. – Jane The women’s area at the western wall. We joined other women of faith in holding up the world with prayer, leaning into the wall, smooth and warm as bone. – Jane Soundprint of birds at the Western Wall: The […]