Among them are Frederick Buechner, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Flannery O’Connor and Ralph McInerny. Each one of them practiced the art and craft of writing stories, and each of them wrote separately on the significance and importance of stories.

It occurs to me that one reason I’m drawn to these authors is that their interest in stories was deeply connected to their understanding that each of us is a character in a story whose author is the God of all creation. And that fact teaches us—among many other things—two important truths.

First, it teaches us that the details of our lives matter. These particulars, what C.S. Lewis calls “the net” of a story, include “the events, the characters, the background descriptions” developed by the author—all of which allow us to be drawn into a story.

And if details are important in stories, then they are also important in our stories. Where are we? Who has God placed in our lives? What challenges are we invited to confront and overcome? These details aren’t incidental to the story. They are the story. “All those concrete details of life,” Flannery O’Connor writes, “make actual the mystery of our position on earth.”

Which brings me to the second point. Within this constellation of the details that make up our story, God also invites us to have agency. In other words, in some mysterious way, we get to participate in the overall story God is writing. We get to act. We get to decide. We get to say to God: “Help me to understand the role you have made for me—and then give me to the courage to play my part.”

Much more could be said, but I’ll leave the final word about stories to Frederick Buechner, from his sermon, appropriately titled The Truth of Stories:

“All our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here. Does the story point beyond itself? Does it mean something? What is the truth of this interminable, sprawling story we all of us are? . . . . It is to choose to believe that the truth of our story is contained in Jesus’s story, which is a love story. Jesus’s story is the truth about who we are and who the God is who Jesus says loves us. It is the truth about where we are going and how we are going to get there . . . and what we are going to find [when] we finally do.”

I believe we will find the author who has been writing the pages of our story all this time. And when we meet him face to face, I pray that he will say to each of us: “You played your part in my story well and faithfully. Welcome home.”

Narratively Yours,

The post The Story God is Writing appeared first on Reflections On Faith.

The movie recounts the story of Moses, who was brought up as a prince in Pharoah’s household, but eventually flees Egypt after killing one of Pharoah’s servants.

After he has fled and started a new and comfortable life in Midian, God appears to Moses in the burning bush. “I will send you to Pharaoh,” God says to Moses, “to bring my people out of Egypt.”

Moses, as you might expect, has some questions about God’s message, and the scene does a brilliant job of capturing the complicated emotions Moses is feeling.

On the one hand, Moses feels fear and dread in the presence of this all-powerful God. “Who am I,” Moses wonders, “that you would send me? You must have the wrong person.”

On the other hand, Moses is moved by the power and mystery of this God who speaks to him through the burning bush. He recognizes something much bigger than himself, and he is drawn into God’s warmth and love.

In a word, Moses is filled with wonder.

This scene, for me, captures beautifully what some have called the “fearful and fascinating mystery” of God’s holiness. This holiness is both awesome and terrifying. It both attracts us and makes us aware of our own limitations. It draws us out of ourselves to something bigger, something deeper. And it reminds us that we are not alone. As God says to Moses in this scene: “I shall be with you, Moses.”

Years later, this same God would remind the world of his commitment to be with us—all of us—by entering human history as a baby born in a small and unimportant town outside of Jerusalem. In Bethlehem, those present at the birth of Jesus—Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the animals, the wise men—recognized that they, like Moses, were in the presence of the holy. And they, too, were filled with wonder.

Two millennia later, as we enter this season of Advent and move into Christmas and Epiphany, I pray that our eyes might also be opened to the presence of God in our time and place. I pray that we might trust God’s eternal promise to us: “I shall be with you.” And I pray that we might recognize that, thanks to this promise, we are, in fact, always in the presence of the holy.

“Take the sandals from your feet,” God said to Moses, “for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” So it was—and so it is.

This winter, each time you stop to take off your wet, snowy shoes, allow yourself to pause in wonder and realize that you, too, stand on holy ground.

Wonderfully Yours,

The post Filled with Wonder appeared first on Reflections On Faith.

I’ve been thinking of this idea of being in the pocket recently as I’ve gone about my work as a pastor.

One of the great gifts of ministry is the opportunity I am given to meet people at all ages and stages of life. I baptize newborns. I get to teach elementary, middle school and high school students. I correspond with college students and young adults. I counsel young parents as they begin families, and young adults as they start out in their careers. I visit regularly with people throughout their professional careers. And I also accompany people as they enter new chapters after retirement, and in the twilight season of those anticipating death.

The result of all of this is that I’m regularly given a privileged position to watch and observe the various “seasons of life.” Each of these seasons has their rhythms and patterns. And we’re called, it seems to me, to find ways to align ourselves with these rhythms—to be “in the pocket” as we move through them.

A hymn that reflects this truth beautifully is “O Blessed Spring”—number 447 in our red hymnal. The words of this hymn, by Susan Palo Cherwien, move us through the different stages of life, each represented by a season. In the spring of life, we are baptized in “word and sign” and embraced as a branch of “this life-giving Tree” of faith. We move then into the “summer heat of youthful years” with “uncertain faith” and “rebellious tears.” Autumn brings with it a cooling of youth, and heavy limbs, but also “gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.” Finally, winter returns us to dust as we “breathe our last.”

Importantly, each of these verses not only describes the various seasons of life but reminds us that Christ is with us throughout each of them, surrounding us with his love at each moment of our existence. Christ embraces us in baptism, sustains us in our youth, gives us the gifts of we receive during adulthood, and holds us as we approach our death.

As we move through our life, we’re invited to be “in the pocket” of whatever season in which we find ourselves. Which is another way of saying that we’re invited to recognize that Christ is the one directing the movements of life. He is the one conducting and setting the tempo. Our job is to find our place under his loving and watchful guidance through the rhythms of worship, service, prayer and rest. And when we do, the music is beautiful indeed.

Rhythmically Yours,

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For me, it also brings to mind a favorite quote from C.S. Lewis, which says, “We live in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.”

That line comes from an essay of his called “Membership,” which he wrote in 1945. In that essay, he cites the still relatively new technology of the “wireless”—the radio—for stealing solitude and silence from us.

When I’ve reflected on that line, I compare it to the world we live in today. “Well,” I think, “if Lewis thought it was bad in 1945, he should see what it looks like now. With cell phones and the all-encompassing presence of social media, there’s even less silence in 2025 than there was in 1945.”

All of which is true, I suppose. The world probably is louder and noisier today than it was when Lewis wrote that essay, which means there are more ways to be distracted.

It is worth noting, though, that the genuine and real problem of distraction isn’t only about the external world in which we find ourselves. It is also about our interior world. And perhaps part of our calling as Christians is to curate enough solitude, silence and privacy in our lives that we can discover our true selves before God—and, through that discovery, develop more authentic relationships with others.

I got to thinking about this when I discovered a book called The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction by Jamie Kreiner.

Kreiner writes: “Distractedness was a kind of preexisting condition—internal, nonconscious, and entangled with the self—that compromised the very commitment to concentrating on things that were important and good. For Christian monks, distraction wasn’t just a potential interference. It had already breached the walls and made itself at home.” 

Another writer, drawing on insights from monk John Cassian, writes, “Because distraction stemmed from inner turmoil, it could not be corrected simply by avoiding certain stimuli. Monks had to tackle distraction systemically, and they saw it as their moral responsibility to do so.”

Medieval monks didn’t have the wireless. And they didn’t have mobile phones or social media. And yet, apparently even they struggled with the perennial problem of distraction. Even they struggled, in the words of C.S. Lewis, to find solitude, silence, and privacy.

Far from depressing us, this should be a reminder that we aren’t alone in working, with God’s help, to clear the clutter of our lives to become more focused on what really matters—regardless of the world in which we happen to find ourselves. And maybe an emphasis on simplicity—the theme of this issue—can allow us more fully be present to God.

Another way of saying all of this comes from author Howard Reingold, who writes, “Attention is a limited resource. So pay attention to where you pay attention.” To which I say, simply, Amen.

Undistractedly Yours,

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—Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation, v. 2

I’ve been thinking about a specific hymn –one we used during worship for the first Sunday after Labor Day. In our pew hymnals, you can find it at number 645, “Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation.”

I’m thinking of this hymn as it relates to the theme of harmony not so much because of the music—although the music is, indeed, harmonious—but rather because of the story behind it. It turns out that both the words and the music for this hymn have a long and rich history.

The words originate from a Latin hymn dating back to the 7^th century. The author of those words has been lost to history. What we do know, though, is that the original Latin was translated into English in 1851 by John Mason Neale—the same person who translated hymns like “All Glory, Laud and Honor,” “O Come, O come, Emmanual,” “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” and more than ten others in our pew hymnals.

And then there’s the music. The tune used for this hymn was written by Henry Purcell, one of the greatest of all English composers, who also served as the organist at Westminster Abbey from 1679 until 1695. The tune was originally written as the concluding “Hallelujah” for a piece he composed called “O God, Thou Art My God.”

It wasn’t until a couple centuries later—in 1843—that the hymn tune as we know it was adapted by a priest named Ernest Hawkins who served as a canon at Westminster Abbey. Then in the 20^th century, a publisher named Sydney Nicholson included the hymn in one of his collections, making it much more well-known. In that collection, Nicholson named the hymn tune Westminster Abbey, honoring both the original composer and the priest who adapted Purcell’s tune, both of whom had served that historic house of worship.

I’m struck by the way different people throughout history, at different times and places, took something that already existed—an all-but-forgotten Latin text, a concluding hallelujah to a rarely performed piece, a hymn that wasn’t well-known—and transformed it into something new and beautiful that we are still singing another 200 years later in 2024.

Recently, we used a prayer in worship that gets this point about how God works through us “across time and space” to accomplish his ends. I offer it here as a blessing, as each of us is called and invited to bring the gift of God’s harmony to the world today.

Let us pray: God of generations, you work in us far more than we can ask or imagine. Bless the church you have called into being across time and space, and fill us with the power of the Spirit for loving service.

Harmoniously Yours,

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I’d commend that talk to you, but I’d also commend all of the other talks from the season, which included an inside look at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the Coronation of Charles III, an exploration of what it means to be a beloved child of God even when you haven’t had a stable family growing up, a conversation about how we stay connected in an increasingly polarized culture, and—maybe most important for this issue of Inspire—a conversation about food in the Bible.

In her talk about Faith & Food, Margaret Feinberg focused on a couple of food items commonly found in the Bible—grapes and olives. The whole talk is, as I say, definitely worth a listen, but given that this issue is about “Growth,” I’ll just lift up a few quick points she shared about vines and branches and grapes. Jesus, most famously, draws our attention to this as a metaphor for the life of faith in John 15.

First, she shared that vines require pruning. This may seem painful or negative—God harming or cutting or taking something away. As Feinberg points out, though, the point of pruning, which is actually a very focused and gentle procedure, is to maximize the growth of the healthiest grapes—allowing them to get the sun and rain and nutrients they need to flourish and thrive. Reminder to us: Maybe our own lives need periodic pruning, too.

Second, she shared that, contrary to our expectations, the best and most flavorful grapes are grown not in nutrient-rich soil which makes growth easy, but rather in soil that is hard and difficult. This forces the roots of the plant to go deep for nutrients, which strengthens the grapevine and results in the best grapes. Reminder to us: Maybe we can reframe how we think about challenges and difficulties in our lives—recognizing that perhaps God can use them to create something beautiful.

Finally, she shared that vines and grapes—and the wine they eventually become—are not a quick proposition. When a cane is first grafted onto a vine, it can take four or five years before the vintner actually harvests any grapes, and it can be years later before those harvested grapes are enjoyed as wine. It is a slow, quiet, methodical process. Reminder to us: Maybe we need to be more patient—with ourselves and with God—trusting that just because it might be slow, quiet and hard to see, important growth is still happening.

Friends, with you, I celebrate that we have been grafted onto the great vine who gives us life, who nourishes us, and who allows us to bear fruit. I pray that you may enjoy the grand adventure of becoming the wine God intends you to be.

Patiently Yours,

The post Pruning, Patience and Reframing: Summer 2024 appeared first on Reflections On Faith.

Much could be written about this episode, but what has always struck me about the story is that everyone—Isaac, Esau, Jacob and Rebekah—understood and accepted the fact that this blessing had power. It wasn’t just some empty words. As one author writes, the blessing communicated “life, strength and authority.” Through these words, Jacob “was made blessed.” And because the blessing had this kind of power, it couldn’t be undone.

I think about this truth every time I am privileged to offer the blessing at the end of our worship services. I recognize that, through the words I speak, I am both announcing something that is true—that God loves you and wants to bless you—and bringing that truth into existence by saying it out loud.

Does that sound mysterious or strange, or even magical? If so, I’m not sure why it should be so surprising.

After all, we all understand intuitively that words have power. Has anyone ever said to you: “I believe in you,” or “You can do it,” or “I’m proud of you,” or “I love you”? Words like these have the power to change us—to help us see ourselves in a new light, to understand ourselves differently, to recognize our potential in a new way.

The opposite is also true, of course. Has anyone ever said: “What’s wrong with you?” or “Why are you so dumb?” or “You’ll never amount to anything”? Again, those kinds of words have tremendous power—to limit us, to defeat us, and to make us stop believing in ourselves.

It’s good to reflect on this truth. It’s good to be reminded that what we say does, in fact, have the power to either bless or curse others. And it’s important for us as Christians to do what we can to focus on the former, and to limit the latter.

But if we’re going to do that, first we need to actually hear and believe and trust that we ourselves have been blessed by a God who loves us. In a world filled with the noise of all kinds of messages that make this difficult to hear, it’s important that we are reminded of this again and again and again. So, today, please hear these words, which are filled with truth, with beauty, and yes, with power:

Beloved, you are God’s own: holy, washed, renewed.
God bless you and keep you,
shower you with mercy,
fill you with courage,
and give you peace.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Blessedly Yours,

The post God Bless You: Spring 2024 appeared first on Reflections On Faith.

So writes C.S. Lewis in his autobiography, which—appropriately, given the theme of this issue—is titled Surprised by Joy.

In this particular passage, Lewis is writing about his experience of what he calls “Joy”—an experience which he says is difficult to put into words but is something like a sensation of the ‘enormous bliss’ of Eden—a reminder of a forgotten and more perfect time, perhaps, or a foretaste of some as yet unrealized future.

He gives a couple of other examples of this experience—the “Idea of Autumn” which comes to him from a book written by Beatrix Potter, for example, and some lines of poetry which prompted in him a particular mood and feeling “with almost sickening intensity.”

“In a sense,” he writes, this experience of Joy is “the central story of my life.”

And yet, as important as this experience seems to him early in the book, Lewis finds himself realizing an even deeper truth about it once he converts to Christianity.

And so, by the end of the volume, Lewis shares with the reader that this thing he calls Joy—“the old stab, the old bittersweet”—“had never had the kind of importance I once gave to it.” Instead, he writes, that “it was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer.”

That thing which Joy was trying to point him to, he came to understand, was not a place, or a thing—not a memory of some forgotten time, or a hope for some future moment—but a person.

And not just any person, but someone who was “both real and recognizable” as a historic individual, “yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god.” And not just “a god, but God.”

During Advent and Christmas, we both anticipate and celebrate the arrival of this numinous individual—this myth become fact, this Word become flesh, this God become human. And we give thanks during this magical season for the one who comes not simply to bring us fleeting happiness or passing pleasure, but to give us, once and for all, the fullness of eternal Joy.

All of this, as the title of a beautiful Advent hymn suggests, may be Unexpected and Mysterious, but that does not mean that it isn’t also true. And so, during this dark season filled with the light of Christ, may we once again be reminded of the power of the incarnation, trusting that “God is with us in our longing to bring healing to the earth, while we watch with joy and wonder for the promised Savior’s birth.”

Joyfully Yours,

The post Unexpected & Mysterious: Winter 2023 appeared first on Reflections On Faith.

His point, of course, is that a ship is made to leave port and go out on the high seas. To explore. To carry cargo. To move people from place to place. Ships are made for a particular job, and it doesn’t make sense for them to avoid that job for the sake of self-preservation.

Aquinas’ point wasn’t only about ships, though. His point was to extend this metaphor to our lives. In the same way that a ship isn’t built to protect itself by staying in port, God calls us to lives of adventure and service. God calls us to lives that bring us out of our comfort zones to learn and grow and discover new things. Lives in which we are always listening to the voice that calls us into the future for the next chapter God is authoring for us.

As I write this, I’m thinking of a couple of recent adventures which my wife Amy and I have just completed.

First, we dropped off our youngest son, Andrew, to begin studies at West Point. That would have been an emotional and challenging drop-off under the best of circumstances, but travel delays and complications made it far worse. If you’ve seen Trains, Planes and Automobiles, it was kind of like that, but worse. He did arrive safely in the end, and all is well, but boy, getting him there wasn’t pretty.

After that experience, we completed a long-planned trip to the UK. Unlike the journey to West Point, that trip went very smoothly. We saw incredible sites, met with wonderful people, and—after the joy and excitement and adventure of travel—were delighted to return home again.

In each case, these experiences have left us with memories which will last for the rest of our lives. And in each case, these experiences have changed us.

Life does that. Like ships, we go out on the adventures God calls us to, and as we discover and learn and grow, we’re changed—hopefully becoming more fully the people God has made us to be.

Frederick Buechner, in his definition of the word “Grace,” talks about how—amid the adventures and experiences God calls us on—God always promises to be with us. Here’s what he says:

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

Blessings to you, my friends, as you embrace the gift of your life, and experience all that God intends for you.

Adventurously Yours,

The post Experience Changes Us: Fall 2023 appeared first on Reflections On Faith.

I’ll quote the passage in full here, and, appropriately, would like to play a little game with you as you read it: I’d like to ask you how Lewis is going to conclude the passage. What will be the final word? And no reading ahead to find the answer!

Here’s the passage, in which he’s talking about how Christianity makes us “new people,” and how some of these people are already here, walking around with us even now:

Already the new [people] are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognisable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. (We must get over wanting to be NEEDED: . . . that is the hardest of all temptations to resist.) They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be [BLANK].

So, what word do you think Lewis is driving towards to conclude this passage? Perhaps meaningful? Or powerful? Or maybe exciting? Profound? Serious? Inspiring?

Any of those could easily work, I suppose. But no. As Lewis draws to the end of what is quite possibly the most important Christian book of the 20^th century, he concludes this passage with this sentence: “To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun.”

Great fun. Would you, in a million years, have expected those words to conclude this line of thought? If not, perhaps it’s because we sometimes take our faith too seriously. And, as the various articles in this issue so helpfully remind us, our faith is supposed to be connected to fun and to play. They are not just “add-ons” or “extras,” but instead are important parts of the life God has blessed us with. As Jesus reminds us in John 10:10, he came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

That means God not only wants us to “get by” or to “survive” this thing called life. No, God wants us to flourish. God wants us to thrive. God wants us to experience joy. God, as Lewis suggests, wants us to have fun, and therefore invites us to live lives filled with play.

What better time of year to consider this than right now, as we move into summer months after a cold winter and a slow, dreary spring. And so, I pray that you, in the months ahead, might allow God to direct you towards moments of play, and that, with C.S. Lewis, you might recognize all the ways we are invited to have “great fun” in this life.

Playfully,

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