Reformed, Hopeful, Always Reforming
We are planning to have “company” this weekend, which is an archaic way of saying that we’ve invited some friends over for dinner. What it really means is that we need to straighten up around this house, and hide the clutter, and clean the floors, and pick up the dog toys. We also need to […]
Read More The House of the LordWhile I was in college, I asked Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff if I could sit in on his liturgy class. I knew I didn’t have time to do the homework, but still wanted to peek in on what he was teaching. He let me! And it was wonderful. We learned about Orthodox liturgy, in particular, and […]
Read More Open TableAround my grandma’s worn, oak table, my favorite stories are told. The ones as familiar as my childhood. The lines that have been repeated so many times I know when they are coming around the corner, can anticipate just when the laughter will follow. Around an unfamiliar table in Switzerland, I was the au pair, a […]
Read More The Table: A Maundy Thursday ReflectionWater: crashing, rushing, lifting, tossing, drowning seeping and eroding, unstopped, because ashes marked us Wednesday; but here comes the water, unrelenting, penetrating, blessing in drops, sprinkles, dunkings, saving from death, through death, not thwarted nor denied by death: God’s love.
Read More Lent 1, 2015Love, coming as a baby, placed us upon a throne. Weak and self-insufficient, that Love became our own, all inhibitions shed, a meal for all creation served in the House of Bread. Love we were not expecting (though it had been foretold) finds us afraid, defensive, so angry, empty, cold and offers warmth instead: the […]
Read More A Love Song in Hungry DaysOne of my favorite lines from my favorite science fiction series, “Doctor Who,” is uttered by the Doctor, sure that he is about to consign himself to oblivion as he saves the universe. “We’re all stories in the end,” he tells a redheaded ten-year-old as she sleeps, and as he leaves the story of himself […]
Read More “Just Make It a Good One”[Image: The Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dali] Truly I say to you that you will be with me in Paradise Let the scoffers scoff and mockers mock. For you have chosen what is right! Bandits they placed on either side of me But in you I see a child of […]
Read More Last WordsI didn’t grow up with a very strong view of baptism. It’s certainly fair to say it wasn’t a Reformed view of the sacrament that I was raised with. The hodgepodge faith that nurtured me included several different denominations – all with different theological emphases – but all decidedly in a revivalist tradition. Baptism was […]
Read More BaptismThere has been a lot of talk around here lately at TRB about TULIPS, catechisms, canons and confessions. In fact, all this week Andy, Tim and myself are offering some of our reflections on The Belgic Confession. At least historically these are all topics that Reformed folks take pretty seriously. So I guess we have been […]
Read More Hungering with the Belgic and BonoWorld Communion Sunday seems to me a good day to revisit what we mean when we talk about celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. In Reformed communities this has been the subject of a good deal of internal debate. In 1846 John Williamson Nevin published his magnum opus, The Mystical Presence: A vindication of […]
Read More Revivalism, Rationalism or Real Union?