The Practice of Attention
On Simone Weil's radical claim that attention is the substance of prayer, and what it means to attend to the world as a spiritual discipline.
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Essays on theology, contemplation, craft, and the examined life.
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Theology Discerning the Body
On what actually happens at the Lord's Supper, why Paul writes about it with something close to fear, and why the Reformers never thought it was just a symbol.
Theology Be Still, and Know
On the psalm that commands stillness in the middle of real chaos, and whether the noise we have engineered for ourselves is a new kind of obstacle to hearing God.
Theology Do You Want to Go Away as Well?
On the sermon in John 6 that emptied a room on purpose, and why Jesus let the crowd leave instead of explaining the saying that offended them.
Theology You Are Always With Me
On the parable of the prodigal son, the brother left standing outside the party, and the ending Scripture refuses to give us.
Theology The Theology of Small Rooms
On why so much of Scripture's weightiest business happens in cramped, borrowed, unglamorous rooms, and what that says about where God prefers to work.
Theology Under the Broom Tree
On why staying a Christian is harder than becoming one, and what God did with a prophet who wanted to die the day after his greatest victory.
Theology Help My Unbelief
On whether doubt is the failure of faith or one of its working parts, and what a desperate father in Mark's gospel understood that we keep forgetting.
Theology A God Who Hides Himself
On divine hiddenness, why a God who wants to be known does not simply settle the argument, and what Isaiah meant by naming that silence directly.
Theology What the Whirlwind Did Not Say
On the question of why God allows suffering, and why Scripture answers it so differently than we expect.
Theology The Practice of Attention
On Simone Weil's radical claim that attention is the substance of prayer, and what it means to attend to the world as a spiritual discipline.
Craft On Writing Slowly
Speed is the enemy of good prose. Some notes on why I have committed to writing slowly, and what that commitment has cost and given me.
Theology Benedict and the Office of Hours
What a sixth-century monk's schedule for prayer reveals about time, rhythm, and the sanctification of ordinary life.