Every year or so I take a group of students on a pilgrimage to Almost Heaven. Its institutional label is Appalachia: Arts, Energy, and Education. Most of these pilgrimages are to...

Nancy Mairs, poet, essayist, teacher of embodied spirituality, came to lecture at Drew University several years ago. Much of her writing and teaching was engaged in the struggle for justice, artistic...

Could you repeat that?” If you’ve ever had the experience of going for snacks just as a game-winning basket occurs, you know the importance of repetition. When we miss out, we...

The Magnificat is aptly named. Mary’s words offer a magnificent declaration of the nature of the Holy One who is intimately involved with our humanity. It’s a song in honor of...

The third week of Advent is a time when patience wears thin. When will it rain? When will this child be born? When will Christ come again? James addresses his words...

I was born with a genetic disadvantage; I lack what is called “sense of direction.” It’s not that I cannot find my way around a map; I can’t seem to map...

I was born with a genetic disadvantage; I lack what is called “sense of direction.” It’s not that I cannot find my way around a map; I can’t seem to map...

My college botany professor was a bit of a strange fellow. He had a good sense of decorum as far as plants might be concerned. With people, though, he lived just...

The desert. What grows in the desert? John the Baptist “appeared” in the desert, the scripture story tells us, and begins wreaking havoc, the likes of which have not been seen...

Christ is drawing, drawing near, Christ is coming, coming here!” So ends a stanza of Tom H. Troeger’s Advent hymn, “Wild the Man and Wild the Place.” The Romans writer, Paul,...