“The important thing is to have a strong center, not strong boundaries.”  –Kay Pranis

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  What God has joined together, let no one separate.” — Matthew 19:6 Freedom is essential to covenant; it is indispensable to the truth of love.   The familiar words, “What God has joined together ” are often invoked at weddings.  They are drawn from the 19th[…]

In his excellent piece, “The Process of Forgiveness in Marriage and the Family,” psychologist Dr. Paul W.Coleman offers an  important insight: “Often, a spouse may have to forgive a parent or grandparent before he or she can fully forgive his or her partner.  As a rule of thumb,the longer a marriage problem has existed despite[…]

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Luke 5:1-11 offers us the compelling narrative of Jesus calling his first disciples. Jesus comes into the story as the place, the person, in whom heaven and earth meet.  He perceives the same horizon running through another as he encounters Simon.    When Jesus says, “Let’s set out into the deep water and let down[…]

“He has sent me to proclaim sight to the blind.”–Luke 4:18 My friend Susan lived with her family on the African continent for a number of years.  She fondly remembers the way people in Botswana customarily greeted each other in the midst of daily life: “I see you!,” they would say, taking care to make[…]

“I knew that if I defined Conor by that one moment–as a murderer–I was defining my daughter as a murder victim.  And I could not allow that to happen.”  –Kate Grosmaire, mother of Ann In March 2010, a young man from Tallahassee, Florida, Conor McBride, shot his girlfriend Ann Grosmaire in the head.    Both[…]

It is like a snapshot.  Luke offers us a portrait of Jesus at age 12, a confirmand of sorts (Luke 2:41-52).  It is the only such account of Jesus’ life between toddler-age (Matthew 2) and the advent of his public ministry, when he is around 30 years old.  Here is Jesus, to us quite young,[…]

The message, “After Darkness . . .Light,” is inscribed on the plaque next to the pool of reflection, where twin fountains of water rise upward from squares representing the footprints of the World Trade Center towers.  The 9/11 Memorial Garden of Reflection in Lower Makefield, Pa, is a beautiful, deeply moving experience for people who enter.[…]

“Jesus answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”  Then Jesus answered, “Woman, great is your faith!”  –Matthew 15:26-28, NRSV The story of Jesus and the “Canaanite woman” resonated deeply[…]