The plot is familiar. It could well be a contemporary tale. We meet a grasping dictator, determined to hang on to power at all costs, paranoid and bloodthirsty. We meet determined seekers after truth, who although without “power” in the normal sense, are possessed with faith and adventure to seek and to find. We meet…

Celebrating the birth of Jesus is an incredible opportunity for all Christians to begin again—be born again—to a life of transformation, first of ourselves and then as instruments of transformation in the world. Our scripture readings today mark the feast of the Epiphany, a word that Webster defines as “to show forth, manifest” and “the…

In this season of Epiphany we enter the realm of light. In fact the Greek church, in the language of the people, has called this season, Ta Phota: “the lights.” In the Eastern church, this season of light is celebrated as fully as the season of Christmas. This liturgical season resides also in symbolism, something…

I want to give a personal two thumbs up to the movie Big Fish. Big Fish is the story of a father and a son that begins and ends at a river. The father, Edward Bloom, is larger than life. On the day of his son William’s birth, he catches the biggest catfish in Alabama’s…

Like Isaiah before us, we have been visited with visions of darkness covering the earth, and thick darkness covering the peoples. We have seen the darkness that pervades what we now call Ground Zero. We have seen the smoldering darkness at the Pentagon. We have looked into a crater of darkness in Pennsylvania. We have…

[This story for the Epiphany is a monologue from a camel’s point of view, and is draws on themes and stories told by Ted Loder, Frederich Buechner, John Shea, and Jean Vanier. It can simply be read, or it could easily be adapted as a kind of skit.] Ships of the desert, my eye! Being a beast…

Today marks the celebration of Epiphany, the revelation, the showing forth, the manifestation of God. This season is begun with the story of the Wise One’s seeking out Bethlehem of Judah in order to find the new King, the one indicated by the great light in the sky and confirmed in the holy texts of…

By the Well, the Twelve Days of Christmas are ending in a burst of celebration and light. The Christmas cookies are nearly all eaten, even the fruitcake has been nibbled down, and the tree is starting to shed. The presents, every last one of them, are open — and lots of them are already in…