One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. (Luke 7:36) We gather — a congregation of indigestible gristle unfit to serve. We sit, transfixed in polite horror as she enters, unbidden. Eyes avert to bronze-skinned grapes filling an olive wood bowl, to the fly perched on a half-eaten fig, to pomegranates, split as arils spill out, to the stain of wine on sunburnt lips. She pours oil on his feet, redolent, shimmering, working a path over skin, received by the dust. He speaks and we are consumed. NADINE ELLSWORTH-MORAN is associate pastor at Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia. … [Read more...]

The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the portion of the land Jacob had bought from the children of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of money; it became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph. (Joshua 24:32) Impossibly long the trail that leads from there to here, up from parted water through empty desolations no one cares to own, to a stopping place safe from the whip, beneath a willow tree. The earth is weeping. Each step is a tear, witness to the passage of his bones. He is laid to rest — if there is such a thing as rest in this migrant life, always moving with the rhythms of the world, one step ahead of terror, one step short of grace. His father bought this land, they say. He is at peace, they say. It is inheritance, they say, this land, this rock-hewn charnel for his bones. But who belongs here? Who knows any peace but the sweet caress of the morning breeze, the fiery … [Read more...]

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea around us.” — Franz Kafka Start by looking at a picture of your fear several times each day and at unexpected moments. Yup. Just whip out that glossy snake 
photograph and stare at it for four seconds. See how you feel. Read how others have come to terms with it, how the Norse serpent grows and grows until it encircles the known world, holds it all together exquisitely. Next, lift a plastic replica 
of one into the palm 
of your hand. Try talking to it, make friends
with it, so to speak. Watch a real one in a jar; get used to how it moves. Take a trip to the nearest reptile house and say to yourself: behold, my fear is contained behind glass. If you find none of this to work, remind yourself that earthquakes can turn water into gold, and that you and I are nothing more and nothing less than the interiors of collapsing stars.   CHARLOTTE MATTHEWS is associate professor in the Bachelor of … [Read more...]