Category: Reflections
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The Wound of Shame
Shame is a wound made from the inside, dividing us from both ourselves and others. FromThe Psychology of Shame, Gershen Kaufman I have been working on papers for presentations at the Climacus Conference in Louisville, KY, in February. The conference is entitled, “Encountering God.” My second paper focuses on the place of shame in our…
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Rest For Your Soul
If…then… Among the most alluring ideas in our lives are the notions of cause and effect, performance and award. Nothing seems more soothing than the simple promise that doing one thing leads to the reward of the other. It is predictable, subject to control, clearly delineates the rules of reward and punishment and makes obvious…
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Christ Is Born! The Angels Sing!
A Serbian Christmas Song – lyrics by St. Nikolai Velimirovich Andjeli Pevaju Noć prekrasna i noć tija, nad pećinom zvezda sija, u pećini mati spi, nad Isusom andjel bdi. Andjeli pevaju, pastiri sviraju, andjeli pevaju mudraci javljaju: Što narodi čekaše, što proroci rekoše, evo sad se u svet javi, u svet javi i objavi: Rodi…
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The Morality of Christmas
Morality is tricky business in what is an extremely moral society. I pray my readers to be patient with me as I explain what I think is the problem. First, I will note that morality is all that is left when the most fundamental grounds of a culture have been destroyed. We indeed live in…
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I’ll Be Small for Christmas
Children today are raised with dreams of greatness. Cultural affirmations of our limitless potential, well-intentioned, have not produced a generation of over-achievers, but have indeed brought forth hordes of great dreams. This is nothing new in American culture. We are the world’s longest sustained pep-talk. Ronald Reagan loved to quote the 1945 Johnny Mercer hit:…
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Keeping Christmas
It is not unusual to give thought to how we keep a fast. Will it be in a strict manner? How will my fasting be possible when I’m at work or at school? How will I teach my children to fast? When we ignore the Fast, we feel guilty and the need to confess. It…
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World Story – the News and the Good News
Human beings make up stories. I don’t mean that the stories aren’t true, only that we make them up. We connect things. We make sense of things. We ask what is happening and the answer is a story. When we read a history book, we encounter a story. We do not examine the facts of…
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A Terrible Knowledge
Greek Mythology made the curiosity of Pandora the primary cause of suffering in the world. She fails to resist the lure of finding out what is in a box she is told to leave closed. Opening the box, she unleashes sorrow and suffering into the world. We humans are a curious lot. We want to…
Dee, This is intriguing! Can you point us to more information?