Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Primary wonder and this day in early August
“IT FLOWS OUT of mystery into mystery: there is no beginning —
Bruce Bode
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Freedom of religion does not stand independently
MY COLUMN THIS month, as we approach the celebration of Independence Day, will reflect on one of our…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The knowledge of death and the awakening to love
MEMORIAL DAY HAD its origin May 30, 1868, when Gen. John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The conditions that prevail
I ASSUME WE’RE all familiar with the tendency to blame others and outside circumstances for our failures and…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The surprise of spring
THOUGH I GREW up in Northwest Washington — Lynden — I spent most of my life in Michigan.
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The Dome of Heaven
Last week I returned from my annual ministerial study break in which I stayed for two weeks in…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Walk the ground of gratitude
“NOTHING IS GIVEN that is not Taken, and nothing taken That was not first a gift” (Wendell Berry).
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Joseph Campbell and the origin of ‘trick-or-treat’
IN 1980-82, I had the privilege of organizing lectures for Joseph Campbell, a scholar of the world’s myths…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: How to begin again through forgiveness
WHAT IS NEEDED to make a new beginning?
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Summer days and the mystery of being
ONE OF OUR greatest modern students of world mythology and religion was Joseph Campbell, the scholar Bill Moyers…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Simple questions lead the way to knowing one’s self
THESE “LAZY, HAZY, crazy days of summer” provide us with an opportunity to consider our lives from a…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Calling on Albert Schweitzer and his ‘stand to reason’
DISDAIN FOR SCIENCE, the splitting off of reason from religion, “fake news”!
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Six different meanings of ‘spirit’
“SPIRIT” AND “SPIRITUAL” are slippery words, largely because they are used in so many ways.
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The tectonic plates underneath apparent gridlock
WHAT CAN WE do — is there anything we can do — to shift the gridlock in our…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The mystery of being
THE FIRST FUNCTION of mythology and religion, writes scholar Joseph Campbell, is the mystical function — namely, to…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The foundations for our national faith
AS HAPPENSTANCE WOULD have it, my turn in the rotation of writers for these “Issues of Faith” columns…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: Candles of the heart
THE CHRISTMAS AND holiday season is now upon us in earnest.
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: ‘To open your mind, open your heart first’
“A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together.” (Ecclesiastes 3:5)
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: ‘Beyond the divisions, there is a field’
There are some “holy moments” where the wholeness of things is demonstrated and felt, a unity that goes…
Life
ISSUES OF FAITH: The primary purpose of religion
Religion comes on the scene to bring the part back into a proper relationship with the larger whole.