by Guy Sayles | Jul 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
It’s easy, far too easy, to lose track of what matters. It’s easy for lawyers and judges to lose track of justice. In modern-day legal systems (there’s more than one), career-building, deal-making, and system-gaming can push a concern for justice to the periphery and...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 8, 2011 | Uncategorized
We’ve all known, and some of us have been, people who are hard to love. Some people send contradictory signals: “Go away” and “Come closer.” “Leave me alone” and “Why don’t you ever call me?” “I need help” and “Do you think I can’t do that myself? I heard one man...
by Guy Sayles | Jul 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
Maybe you’ve heard it said that the United States is often caught in the cross-fire of its uncritical lovers and its unloving critics. I try for a third way: to be a loving critic—to practice what Lutheran-turned-Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus once called...
by Guy Sayles | Jun 30, 2011 | Uncategorized
Mary Oliver’s prose poem “West Wind, 2” intrigues and moves me: You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me....
by Guy Sayles | Jun 21, 2011 | Uncategorized
In his novel, Miss Wyoming, Douglas Coupland recounts an exchange between a young woman, Vanessa, and John Johnson, a “debauched, disillusioned movie producer who has given away all his possessions” in the attempt to start a new life—to “reinvent” himself. “Do you...
by Guy Sayles | Jun 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
We can’t learn very much—not much that matters, anyway—about love by gathering information about it. Sure, there are mountains of books about love: elaborate philosophies and theologies of love; thorough psychologies and sociologies of love; moving stories about the...
by Guy Sayles | May 25, 2011 | Uncategorized
Midlife is the autumn, the fall, of the human journey. Who knows precisely how young or old a middle-aged person is? Chronologically it starts within sight of 40 and ends within range of 70. But, chronology is not the main marker of midlife. The realizations and...
by Guy Sayles | May 18, 2011 | Uncategorized
Since my college days, I have had a recurring dream: On a rainy Sunday night, my car breaks down in a small town in rural south Georgia. The only gas station that boasts a real mechanic won’t be open until Monday morning. The only food available is at a combination...
by Guy Sayles | May 2, 2011 | Uncategorized
This week, a fairy tale came true in London; and a nightmare became tragic reality in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and across the south. People in this country who struggle to be a work by 8:30 in the morning set their alarms for 4:00 AM and rolled out of bed without...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 23, 2011 | Uncategorized
At noon today, we gathered in the chapel to be called to, and accompanied in, prayer by our Adult Handbell Choir; they rang so well, as they always do. Among the prayers we offered on this Good Friday (and Earth Day) were these: Creating and Sustaining God, whose word...
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