In Matthew’s Gospel there are no Angels associated with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, but only an Angel who came to Joseph at Jesus’ conception, or soon after that. Matthew offers us not a “heavenly host” in the sky over Bethlehem and the Stable, but instead he speaks of Wise Men coming from the East, who can see better in the dark that which finally mattered most to them to find. I think of the dramatic opening line of Theodore Roethke’s poem: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”  Read More

Jim Harrison, poet, novelist (b. 1937): “Life is sentimental. Why should I be cold and hard about it? That's the main content. The biggest thing in people's lives is their loves and dreams and visions, you know.”  Read More

St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1533-1578)1 , Engravings by Cort van Hoorn Cornelis (1533-1578)2 and Girolamo Muziano (1532 – died Rome, 27 April 1592).3 In Matthew 10, the evangelist lets us remember with him that day, or was it over the course of a few weeks, when Jesus finally decided who from out of “the crowds” were to be His closest colleagues – the Twelve.Matthew 10 (NJB): 2 These a...  Read More

In the post-Classical, or the Ecclesiastical Latin, period of the Latin language, the noun annunciatio (late 4th century CE, in the Vulgate translation of the Bible by St. Jerome) meant “a preaching of the Gospel”, a moment or instance of this having been done. It was only in the 7th century that this same noun came to mean the most consequential proclamation of the Gospel in all of human history:  Read More

The accomplishment of our national Election last week compelled me to think deeper about what had happened. We eventually learn that rarely do we understand something consequential happening while it is happening. It is only afterwards that we may begin to understand – Then they said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?’ - if we have trained ourselves in the discipline of recollection.  Read More

Yesterday, Saturday afternoon, I went with three friends to a performance by the Oregon Repertory Singers. One of our four is a Tenor in that group. After the concert, we four went to an Italian dinner, where we talked about what we had heard and felt, which interestingly (and I think significantly) ended up becoming a conversation about the nature of Heaven. For some reason, as I looked out from my seat toward Tom the Tenor standing at the center of the top row, I remembered a poignant poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) called “Sympathy”, whose last stanza reads: I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings  Read More

I have never understood why the season of Autumn has had a particular power to access me. I don’t mean that I merely like Autumn; I mean that in some way I belong to Autumn. If there is any poetry in my soul it is most accessible to me in Autumn. Do you have a season that affects you in a similar way? Do you know why it does?  Read More

A few days from now, on August 28th, it will be my mom’s birthday, who if she had not gone among our Ancestors in November 2009 would have beheld over ninety candles blazing on the surface of a necessarily large cake. August 28th is also the annual feast day of St. Augustine (354-430 CE) , a saint who was the heavenly patron of my home church in Spokane when I was a boy (1954 to 1972). My mother was born on that saint’s annual feast day; my “mother” church was looked after by St. Augustine. What left the greatest impression on me as a boy in that church was its stained glass windows filled with saints, up at whom I gazed as a boy when, often, my attention wandered from what I was supposed to attend to happening up there in the pulpit or at the altar.   Read More

If you were to ask anyone who knows me even remotely well what my favorite thing is, they would undoubtedly say: the beach.  There is nowhere I feel more spiritually at home than at the beach, and I admit that I love the sun, sand, and sea with a near fanatical zeal.  My husband and children can attest that anytime we have a few...  Read More

This past week, I went to the home of a man whom I had never met, except through the report of him in the words, and in the expressive face, of a friend who admires him. I was told that the man has been significantly, and irreversibly, disabled for five years by the breakdown of several essential systems in his body. The friend had asked me, “Could you come and visit with him? I know that you will know what to do.” (Words to this effect.) I said, “Of course I will come. When?” And so it was arranged. I went.  Read More

Wayside shrine in Carinthia, Austria The Ludwig family garden will not be appearing on the cover of Sunset magazine anytime soon.  My husband and I, both natives of asphalt-laden urban areas, did not seem to inherit the gene that enables one to create a neat, polished, and orderly garden.  Instead, our front yard is a mix of sprawling, unpruned rose bushes, random patches of wildflowers such as da...  Read More

I want to recount a conversation that I had this week. He and I found ourselves, at one point in our conversation, reflecting on the relentless calamities happening inside a formerly distinguished Institution. We had been noticing too many evidences of its lostness, its progressive self-destruction under bleakly vague leadership. when people lose hope.  Read More