faith

Within This Holy Quiet

Steve · February 25, 2018 · 10 Comments

leaf — Leaf in the Meramec River. SJG photo.

Sometimes, the quiet we seek is not mere silence. Rather, it is silence enough to hear a whisper, the voice of God calling out to us in the sounds of the earth. For this sunny, warming Sunday morning, I offer a poem about what we can hear if we dare silence ourselves.

Within this holy quiet
I hear your word in the wind
blowing through trees
in the caw caw caw of crows
(always three times, it seems)
in the rat-a-tat-tat of a singular distant woodpecker
in the slap of water against a mid-stream rock
at the bottom of the hill.

Choosing Joy Over the Facts

Steve · February 11, 2018 · 12 Comments

Sue — Choosing the joy of a hike on a warmer day. SJG photo.

“Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.” Wendell Berry

This powerful idea of Wendell Berry, a Kentucky novelist, poet, cultural critic and farmer, can be a tough idea to get our heads around. For it requires openness on our part, a willingness to accept what life hands us with an attitude of joy and gratitude for what we have already received. It is an inclination to see the beautiful despite the ugly and an invitation to see the dignity of human life despite those who would have us denigrate everything we don’t agree with or understand. It is a chance to find the very best in others when all the cultural mores and signs direct us to find their faults and take advantage of them.

So with that in mind, I am deciding to “be joyful” today, even though the facts — the words and the images swirling around me — can be a bit disheartening. I am deciding that only I get to choose what creates my state of mind and my attitude toward the world.

Boy Like Me: The Call of Jesus in the Temple

Steve · January 6, 2018 · 2 Comments

IMG_4003 (1) — That's me, right about 12.

Well, I was twelve years old in the meeting house
Listening to the old men pray.
Well, I was tryin’ hard to figure out
What it was that they was tryin’ to say.
There you were in the temple
They said, “You weren’t old enough to know the things you knew.”

And did they tell you stories ’bout the saints of old,
Stories about their faith?
They say stories like that make a boy grow bold,
Stories like that make a man walk straight.

(Rich Mullins, Boy Like Me)

In the Catholic Church and other liturgical denominations that follow a regular lectionary of scripture readings, this is the time of year that we hear what little we know about Jesus’ early years. There’s not much there, of course, once the Holy Family returns from exile in Egypt. (They were refugees, after all, and it’s important to remember that in these days).

A New Psalm 8 for the New Year

Steve · December 31, 2017 · 12 Comments

Clouds — A painted sky, Sedona. SJG photo.

As we head into the New Year this cold, cold, cold (did I mention it is cold here in St. Louis?) Sunday morning, I find myself yearning for spring and pondering two of the (many) great mysteries of life: First, why are we so gifted with the beauty, bounty and intricacy of the world around us? And second, in the midst of all this signal of God’s glory—small and hidden as we are as minuscule beings in the vastness of the earth and universe—who are we that God is mindful of us?

Jacob in the Morning: Surely God is in this place

Steve · December 10, 2017 · 2 Comments

Every moment sacred. Sedona sunset in Sue's hand. SJG photo.

For this cold Sunday morning, I offer a retelling of a story from Genesis 28…a story that challenges us to consider that the holy is all around us — not merely in temples and churches, not only in sacraments and to the accompaniment of soaring music or while standing in inspiring places of natural or human-created beauty. The holy is where we are at any given moment of our day, if only we’re willing to look for God in that moment. Imagine Jacob, the morning after his dream:

It’s the “morning after” as I tell this story to myself, hoping that speaking it out loud will allow me to remember everything I experienced last night…