by Guy Sayles | Feb 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
We’ve all heard, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” As worn-out as that cliché’ surely is, it still serves to remind us of one of the most common dances we use to two-step around the truth about ourselves and the world—the denial dance. You can pretend not to know...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
In the late 1970s, when Anita and I were in seminary in Louisville, KY my maternal grandparents, who lived four hours away in Huntington, WV, were the relatives to whom we most closely lived. Whenever we could, usually a few times a year, we’d visit them in the modest...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. in After Virtue, claimed that two of our culture’s emblematic professions “the Manager” and “the Therapist.” The Manager is mostly concerned with technique—with turning raw material into products, turning unskilled labor into skilled...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 10, 2012 | Uncategorized
For many years now, I’ve had a growing conviction that the great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner was right to have claimed: “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” He meant that people will either have a dynamic, immediate, and...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 30, 2012 | Uncategorized
At a critical point in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo, the Hobbit whose burden it was to carry the Ring toward its destruction—the destruction that would save Middle Earth—has grown weary and disheartened. He’s afraid and uncertain. He says to the wise wizard, Gandalf...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 16, 2012 | Uncategorized
I grew up in Atlanta—Martin Luther King, Jr.’s hometown—during the most intense days of the civil rights movement. The center of the movement was in Atlanta’s “Sweet Auburn” district, a vibrant African-American business and professional district, where the Ebenezer...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 10, 2012 | Uncategorized
I surely understand the opening lines of Edward Hirsch’s poem, “Self Portrait”: I lived between my heart and my head, like a married couple who can’t get along. . . My head says: “I think.” My heart says, “I feel.” Head says, “I’ve concluded”; heart says, “I wonder.”...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 31, 2011 | Uncategorized
Thresholds can be frightening. Our ancient ancestors felt that thresholds were dwelling places for evil spirits. They believed that stepping on a threshold made them vulnerable to the spirits which lurked there, so they were careful to avoid them. Often, they posted...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 26, 2011 | Uncategorized
Some Christmas music, like Rutter’s and Vivaldi’s magnificent Glorias and Handel’s “Hallelujah” from Messiah, is transcendent and transfiguring. It takes us to places we could never otherwise go and changes us in ways we could not otherwise be changed. Some Christmas...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
In It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty and her friend Marcie argue about who will play the role of Mary in the annual Christmas pageant. Since their teacher already asked Marcie, she’s sure it will be her. But such trivial facts never bother...
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