A friend asked me for my definition of hope, and I found myself talking about covenant. Hope is the love of neighbor and the world that keeps you going, despite all of the reasons for despair. During an interfaith panel that I sat on a student asked how the panelists different traditions maintained hope in … Continue reading “A Psalm” by Thomas Merton
Tag: Christianity
A Priest at the End of Christendom
Published May 22, 2023 on Substack “I’ve come to realize that I don’t need to reform the church. I just need to love people.” This is what I said when interviewing for my current position as the rector of a small, urban Episcopal church in the midwest. Eight years before I had begun working for … Continue reading A Priest at the End of Christendom
Under the Covers
“Why didn’t Jesus have sex?” One of my students asked me this some years ago. We were in the middle of cooking dinner for our weekly campus ministry meal, and my thoughts were on the onions simmering in a pan and on gathering the ingredients to make dessert. I was distracted and the answer I … Continue reading Under the Covers
A Story about Saint Mark
Mark was a Levite, ranked as a member of the second most holy group in Israel, but he wasn't treated with any respect. He met Jesus and then rejected him, because he still wanted to think of the world in terms of purity and impurity, and Jesus wanted him to think of the world in … Continue reading A Story about Saint Mark
Perpetua and Her Companions
Perpetua was a young mother when she was arrested in 203 A.D. She had become involved with a group of Christians, and was walking with her fellow catechumens through the town of Thuburbo Minus when she was taken into custody. The crime of these early Christians was a refusal to sacrifice to the gods on … Continue reading Perpetua and Her Companions
KPB Stevens 