When I was five, I played the cello for the first time in a music festival. Music festival is a strong word for the experience I had. Yes, there were lots of players and pieces and judges and carrying music stands on and off stages. But as far as I was concerned, there were only…
Easter isn’t just one day—it is an entire season. The next fifty days celebrate Jesus’ victory over Sin and Death—which is even longer than Lent. It’s a reversal that resounds through all time and eternity, but can we party that long? You may have experienced that Easter joy again this year, where the truth of…
And so here we are: this is Holy Week, the final days of Lent. It is a time jam-packed with emotional lows and highs, powerful theology and moving services such as the foot washing of Maundy Thursday, the darkness of Tenebrae, and the vigils of Saturday night. Or maybe you are braving the Good Friday…
If you attend a church that observes the liturgical calendar, this weekend you may have noticed the sanctuary decorated with flowers, clergy clad in pink vestments, and the organist may have been allowed her chance at that instrumental solo she has been longing to launch into. But why? Aren’t we observing Lent—a season for the…
As children most of us wrote to Santa Claus to ask for particular Christmas gifts. I’m not sure all of us asked our parents for the Jem doll, a 1980s version of Barbie except that her neck was extra thick to accommodate the double A batteries that made her ears light up. But we all…
We feel our smallness when we consider the universe, unutterably vast, dark, and scattered. Whole swaths of space are empty while elsewhere galaxies drift through the void for eons of time before colliding with each other. Some stars go nova and incinerate the planets orbiting them, expending themselves in an explosion so powerful that our…
When I was a little girl, my parents would bribe me with a dollar for every poem I memorized. It is disconcerting to see a child recite some of the sexier parts of Romeo and Juliet, but, what can I say, that was my idea of rebellion. My father, the history professor, was big on…
[Listen to a recording of today’s article by clicking play below.] It’s a day with a lot of names—Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Fastnacht—but around our house it was always Pancake Day. Though the Bowler girls were not brought up to be great observers of the church calendar, we always knew when it was…
Lent has me thinking about the ubiquity of suffering. Sickness is part of the universal human experience, but we try so hard to disengage from it. You would think we all understand that we are all going to die (unless you are Walt Disney, who has probably come the closest to cultural immortality)! But it’s…
This week marks the beginning of Lent, the forty days in the Christian liturgical calendar leading to the commemoration of Jesus’ crucifixion (Good Friday) and resurrection (Easter). For many Christians, it’s a time to temporarily abandon vices, try new spiritual practices, or give up Chik-fil-a milkshakes (Lent conveniently corresponds with Spring Break beach vacation season)….
