Angels: A Retraction

Like many a minister, I’ve preached some very fine sermons that I can no longer recall and some roundly mediocre ones that I cannot seem to forget. Yet there is only one I truly regret delivering, not because it was rotten or wordy or diffuse but rather, because it was just wrong. I remember this sermon often, with a curious admixture of mortification and gratitude. Certain kinds of mistakes can be real gifts, if we receive them in the right spirit. Continue reading

Lessons from Brown Buttons

Oddly, the prolonged aftermath of 9/11 felt more stirring to me than the actual event itself. As one of the train passengers who was evacuated into the subway stop at Wall Street while the Twin Towers burned overhead, I took from that day, month, year a pronounced sense of having being spared. That sense stayed with me for some time and it obligated me in ways I could never fully explain. So I developed a series of private devotions around the people who had not survived; there were many of those. Continue reading