Drew Faust in the epilogue of her book, “This Republic of Suffering: Death and The American Civil War,” wrote: “Individuals found themselves in a new and different moral universe, one in which unimaginable destruction had become a daily experience. Where did God belong in such a world? How could a benevolent deity countenance such cruelty and such suffering?” Faust notes, “Civil War Americans lived the rest of their lives with grief and loss.” The scale of suffering was such that no one was left untouched nor unchanged. I wonder if the same will be said of those of us living in this time of COVID-19. My brother, who works in a Boston emergency room, sent me a text: “Boston Globe had 20 pages of obituaries. Scary.” Makeshift morgues dot city landscapes. Cremations are backlogged. Unclaimed bodies in New York are buried in mass graves. The unimaginable has become a daily experience. People are dying without family by their sides, last words having been spoken through a screen. “The … [Read more...]

Our life together is not about bigger and more, it is about smaller and less. That’s not a message that will get much traction in current culture. It is not a sentiment that has often been celebrated or sought. Nonetheless, it is the gospel of our Lord. Jesus says: Come, follow, be less than others, seek to be last. Pour yourself out. Look to the interest of others. Go out into God’s great big world and get small. Mustard seed small. Leaven small. Sheep small. Kneeling small. Just-a-lamplight-in-the-face-of-a-dark-world small. Vulnerable-children small. Not-my-will-but-God’s-be-done small. Jesus welcomes little children and accepts the boy’s gift of simple barley bread and little fish. He chooses to go to the home of Zacchaeus, small in stature and even lower in reputation. Jesus attracts crowds, but he does not seek them out. Often, he attempts to leave their clamoring attention, retreating instead to the company of his Father or his closest friends. Perhaps his preference for … [Read more...]