by Guy Sayles | Feb 19, 2009 |
I am spending most of this week away, leading a Bible study for one church in the Atlanta area and a Deacons’ retreat for another. The churches are different from each other in some ways. One is an old and venerable downtown church, located in the center of a...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 16, 2009 |
Charles Darwin’s 200th Birthday was last week, and it got me thinking again about the relationship between faith and science. Some of us fear that modern science has issued orders which, if we complied with them, would shutter the sanctuaries, empty the choir lofts,...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 10, 2009 |
Paul Jones, who taught theology at a seminary in Kansas City, has a great appreciation for jazz. At one time, he and a colleague spent a good deal of time scouting-out new jazz players in that town which has such a fine jazz tradition. After hearing [a new musician...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 3, 2009 |
In a recent Christian Century (January 13, 2009), I read an excerpt from an interview with poet Christian Wiman. Wiman returned to his childhood faith after many years of searching and wandering. When he did, some people met that return with suspicion and wondered if...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 27, 2009 |
One of life’s most healing and simplest gifts is silence. In one way, I can claim it easily: get away from the blaring TV, turn off the cellphone and the radio, shut down the computer, and get some distance from the buzz and hum of activity. It’s what...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 21, 2009 |
Having grown up in Atlanta in the 1960s and 1970s, I experienced the currents and crosscurrents of fear, prejudice, promise and hope that were part of the civil rights movement in the south. I remember how mesmerized I was by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (I tried, as a...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 15, 2009 |
On Wednesday evenings, I am leading a series of studies/reflections I’m calling “Recovering Your Life: Everyday Spirituality and the Twelve Steps.” My basic claim is that the recovery movement, rooted in the remarkably practical and insightful wisdom...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 5, 2009 |
In his new book, Living Gently in a Violent World (coauthored by Stanley Hauerwas), Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, a network of communities which include people with and without intellectual disabilities, writes about what happened to him when he first entered...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 28, 2008 |
In many ways, my favorite week of the year is this last one. It feels like a pause between the rush of Christmas and the press to get the new year off to a meaningful and productive start. The pace is blessedly slower and saner. I have a brief break from preparing...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 23, 2008 |
This past Sunday, I said that the only Christmas gift any of us truly and really wants is to be loved. We ache to be fully known, graciously accepted, and tenderly cherished. We want to feel safe, nurtured, and at home somewhere, at least in our own skin. We yearn to...
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