by Guy Sayles | Dec 31, 2009 |
Christians believe that, in one brief and remarkable life, the life of a first century Galilean Jew named Jesus, we have experienced God more fully than in anything else in creation and more completely than in anyone else in human history.We experience God, to be...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 25, 2009 |
I was glad when our recent snow melted just enough–and city workers and merchants had shoveled and salted enough–to make narrow walkable trails through downtown. On both the 23rd and 24th, after several days of being cooped-up inside, I took long walks...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 19, 2009 |
In her fine book, Dakota, Kathleen Norris writes about what she has learned from the fierce beauty of that vast stretch of the High Plains which serves as the beginning of the desert West. Sparsely populated, often barren, and frequently harsh, those plains are...
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...
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