by Guy Sayles | Dec 16, 2009 |
This past Sunday, my sermon grew out of my reflections on the day’s reading from Zephaniah 3. What follows is an excerpt:Jesus is God’s leverage to lift our cynicism and to free us from sadness. Deep in his bones, flowing in and out of his lungs, coursing...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 9, 2009 |
I just finished Chris Hedges incisive, brilliant, and disturbing analysis of American culture, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. The book is blunt and even graphic in places, so my recommendation that you read it comes with a...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 1, 2009 |
Sunday night, as a part of our Hanging of the Green service, we sang the poignant and lovely hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.” That hymn, based on a medieval poem, includes a question with which I gladly and gratefully wrestle:What language shall I borrow...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 24, 2009 |
I once read an interview of the poet Richard Wilbur in which he admitted that he was having a hard time with the writing of new poems: “I might have something like half a new book of poems done. At the moment, I’m struggling to recover the habit of writing poems, the...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 18, 2009 |
The fine poet, Seamus Heaney said in his essay, “Feeling into Words”: “Finding a voice means that you can get your own feeling into your own words and that your words have the feel of you about them.” That is a daunting but rewarding challenge for any...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 10, 2009 |
Over the last few years, I have (gratefully) become aware of the wisdom and insights of the Jungian therapist James Hollis. One of his most recent books is titled Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life. It is a hopeful and realistic appraisal of the challenges and...
by Guy Sayles | Nov 3, 2009 |
Near the end of the 19th century (1897), Therese of Lisiuex died at the age of 24, after spending nine years in a small convent. During the illness that took her life, Therese overheard one of her sister nuns say: “Sister Therese will die soon; what will our...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 27, 2009 |
From time to time, people ask me what I’m reading. So, occasionally, I’ll post here the books on my current stack. I don’t necessarily recommend the books I’ll mention, and I certainly don’t always agree with them. But, I don’t read...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 24, 2009 |
We are living in an era of great upheaval and confusion. Sven Birkerts, a perceptive literary critic, said:We are living in a society and culture that [are] in dissolution. Pack this paragraph with your own headlines about crime, eroded values, educational decline,...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 19, 2009 |
There is an important distinction between curing and healing. Curing is the great gift that sometimes comes to us from God through medical care, the love and suppot of others, and the mystery of prayer. We recover: the cancer goes into remission; blood begins to flow...
Recent Comments