tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-366589222009-02-12T10:16:15.499-05:00A biweekly blog from the Andover Newton FacultyAndover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-35388481226472550572009-02-06T09:24:00.003-05:002009-02-12T10:16:15.509-05:00

Come, O Spirit, holy longing    in our work and in our play, In our silences and singing   where we learn how best to pray. Stir simplicity within us,   from our doubts and fears release; Lure us in your web of justice,   lead us forth into your peace. For these waters which anoint us   in our death as in our life, We give thanks and ask for courage    to endure the pain and strife. O

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-91864140615794288122008-11-05T12:48:00.000-05:002008-11-05T12:49:15.691-05:00

We have not always closed our eyes to pray. Why do we, anyway? Is it because we assume that prayer involves deference – and thus, we “bow our heads” and close our eyes? Hard to say. But the practice of closed-eye praying is a relatively recent innovation in the long history of Christian devotional practices. Do we imagine that the One to whom we address our prayers hides in the darkness?

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-63156406085042950302008-08-29T16:53:00.002-04:002008-08-29T16:57:33.916-04:00

Sacred Time: Sacred Mind Journeys of Spirit An exhibit of paintings by Robert M. Sarly at Andover Newton Theological School in the Wilson Chapel and the Meetinghouse Gallery 2 September – 31 December 2008 The difficulty of paintings, Plato once lamented, was that they “stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence.” Of course, the philosopher was

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-74961177857025121252008-08-05T17:28:00.001-04:002008-08-11T14:12:26.349-04:00

Some days I wonder when and where they’ll happen, the epiphanies. One August morning I found myself leaning into a book that wanted to tell me why poetry matters – how it makes visible truths we can’t see, and sings us beyond the long et cetera of small virtues. I knew all this, but was still strangely glad in the reading. And then I noticed them: a family of sparrows all brown and

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-43040522452981734662008-07-28T11:11:00.003-04:002008-07-28T11:18:24.075-04:00

There is something in us that doesn’t like to be lost. We want to know where we are and, when we’ve wandered from the proverbial straight and narrow path, how to find our way home again. Becoming disoriented not only confuses us; it scares us. At such times we wonder if anything good can come of such experiences. The Bible seems to agree, telling a story of the "fall" – which I like to

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-87739906495624114152008-06-16T16:19:00.002-04:002008-06-16T16:22:38.162-04:00

Election Day sermons represent a venerable but long extinct New England tradition. What are they, and might we dare to preach them today? And, if so, how might ministers do this – and still keep their jobs? In their day – and this stretched from the early colonial period through the later 19th century in Massachusetts – such sermons depended on assumptions that no longer make much sense to us.

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-72728225546811442062008-06-03T13:49:00.003-04:002008-06-03T13:55:45.957-04:00

In my ongoing reading adventures with the five-year-olds at Old South Church, we found ourselves this week thinking our way into the tiny world of ants. They’d just been to the Franklin Park Zoo, where they delighted in the big animals – “lions and tigers and bears – oh my!” To find our way into the ants’ lives, and the story I’d chosen for the week, we tried together to imagine what it would

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-68310377325106794512008-05-20T18:02:00.000-04:002008-05-20T18:03:25.242-04:00

Each week during this sabbatical year, I’ve led the “Friday story circle,” reading a picture book with the five-year-olds at Old South Church’s preschool. They are a group still articulate with wonder, and vulnerable to the unexpected, unclear about the boundaries we finally learn as we negotiate adolescence between the imagined and the real. They want to know, every week, if the stories “

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-55973266090113142622008-05-12T12:15:00.003-04:002008-05-12T12:20:09.034-04:00

There is something in us that doesn’t like to be lost. We want to know where we are, and how we can get “home” again. We’re afraid when we get disoriented, which in its literal root means: “un-east-ed,” confused about the oriens or “rising sun.” Can anything good come of such experiences? We all remember times when we were lost, and I mean really lost. Where we lost our bearings, and couldn

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-30022051184234116942008-05-05T09:58:00.001-04:002008-05-05T10:00:22.550-04:00

"The call of beauty – of the sort of beauty that grips our sight to the point of sometimes closing our eyes shut – summons our voice to speak, that it may be heard within our voice as a call and therefore actually be seen. This voice, our own, the human voice where we listen forever to what beckons to us, is the very place where Spirit erupts into the world." Jean-Louis Chrétien, The

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-16369319120170604652008-04-28T13:36:00.001-04:002008-04-28T13:38:25.963-04:00

“No matter where in the world he may be, no matter what may be his power of protest, or his means of expression, the poet finds himself ultimately where I am. Alone, silent, with the obligation of being very careful not to say what he does not mean, not to let himself be persuaded to say merely what another wants him to say, not to say what his own past work has led others to expect him to say.

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-88956876349195852282008-04-07T11:14:00.001-04:002008-04-07T11:16:52.135-04:00

What a strange twist in this year’s celebration of political carnival. Now that a Democrat has emerged as a front-runner who is a person of passionate faith, evangelical in fervor and progressive in vision, it seems he isn’t quite right after all. Not for what he believes (or doesn’t), but for what his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, said in a sermon. If you missed hearing about this, you’re

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-53582419582541745732008-03-30T15:01:00.001-04:002008-03-30T15:06:29.387-04:00

Each week during my sabbatical, I’ve been leading a story circle with the five-year-old preschoolers at Old South Church in Boston. We recently began our time together by talking about what makes a poem what it is. One of the kids hit it right on the head: “It’s a story that rhymes!” Of course not all do. But many do tell stories, and they often rhyme. We practiced some rhyming words

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-19247328567598600162008-02-06T15:28:00.000-05:002008-02-06T15:31:28.310-05:00

To sit and dream, to sit and read, To sit and learn about the world Outside our world of here and now –    Our problem world – To dream of vast horizons of the soul Through dreams made whole, Unfettered, free – help me! All you who are dreamers too,    Help me to make    Our world anew. I reach out my dreams to you.    - Langston Hughes Reading stories with very young children can bring us face

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-78465452687794209062008-01-29T12:08:00.000-05:002008-01-29T12:12:22.877-05:00

Winter under cultivation Is as arable as Spring      Emily Dickinson Sometimes, a poem is worth more than a long sermon, both those we hear and those we preach! I thought of this when reading a story to a group of preschool children recently at Old South Church. They are so ready, these four- and five-year-olds, to be enchanted, to make believe, to fashion sometimes outrageous stories into

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-70419632048476232102008-01-13T20:53:00.000-05:002008-01-13T20:55:58.621-05:00

The New Year is now upon us, and this year the news is full of commentary, predictions, and broodings about the presidential primaries. Even in Europe, where I spent the last few weeks, the papers and television news programs have been saturated with this story: first with Iowa, which the Germans describe as the state with "more pigs than people," and then New Hampshire, with "Super Tuesday"

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-50228966620108011612007-12-20T11:16:00.000-05:002007-12-20T11:17:56.417-05:00

What is becoming of God these days? One might well wonder. When asked in a recent Advent children’s sermon I heard what Christmas was all about, one bright-eyed little boy sounded forth immediately: “Presents!” Or so we adults all thought, and laughed as we are often wont to do in such moments – because of the candor, the simplicity, and the innocent joy with which children express themselves

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-31839337985081471052007-12-07T15:03:00.000-05:002007-12-07T15:12:22.435-05:00

Advent is a season when we pray for God’s coming among us, with an audacity that borders on the absurd. God, coming here and now? It all seems a most unlikely expectation, now as "then" in a forlorn corner of the Roman Empire, Bethlehem. What is it that this season re-minds us of, in its call to watch and wait, to keep vigil? What does it mean, in Advent, that we find ourselves as a people

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-33097875677575798622007-10-24T13:18:00.001-04:002007-11-05T10:41:11.257-05:00

A few days ago, I received a discount coupon from a vendor for use in their store. I’d not asked for this coupon, mind you, and was surprised to discover that it offered me a rather large discount on a future purchase – one I’d not intended to make, but now might. Such is the lure of a bargain! And it came from a bookstore, for Pete’s sake; they knew my weakness, no doubt because they are

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-38821798224644912872007-10-04T16:04:00.000-04:002007-10-04T16:20:31.655-04:00

“. . . as it is in heaven”:  it is strange that so little is said, these days, about heaven, a theme that lies at the heart of the prayer we call “The Lord’s.”  At least, this seems to be so among the mainline churches, remaining a staple of the religious vocabulary in the fundamentalist churches as the meek counterpoint to the strongly leveraged threats of hell.  But in our sort of

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-28131651457687829102007-09-18T13:50:00.000-04:002007-09-18T14:02:07.227-04:00

Jeremiah 23:29: "Is not my word like fire?"Luke 12:49: "I have come to bring fire to the earth."Have you heard about a book called "The Gospel of Thomas"? In 1945, archaeologists found a copy of a text in Egypt that goes by the above title. The Gospel of Thomas consists entirely of proverbs by and teachings of Jesus; there are no stories in it. Did Jesus actually say any, some, or all of the

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-62056073835080253202007-09-14T13:00:00.001-04:002007-09-14T13:12:00.093-04:00

Hidden Singer, who teaches the birds their melodies and whispers tunes into the ears of musical geniuses, Come by here. So that we might hear your harmony and live with hope. O Creator of the world that is "very good" and from whom everything that is beautiful and true issues, today you might hear us use the word "best." O Ancient of Days, today you might hear us use the word "oldest." O You who

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-40275255871391537232007-09-05T12:32:00.000-04:002007-09-05T12:33:04.809-04:00

. . .which is the message, implicit or brazen, that drives the advertising machinery of the modern "surplus" economy. But what it if were also true that our identity is essentially shaped, for better or worse, by the nature not primarily of our desires but rather of our desiring? As we grow older and perhaps wiser, we come to see that the most important existential questions * despite our

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-30440664335591298432007-06-06T14:44:00.001-04:002007-06-06T14:47:04.979-04:00

May 31, 1934: On that day, seventy-three years ago, a group of lay persons and pastors gathered in a city in northwestern Germany named Barmen, and signed a statement of faith drafted by the young theologian Karl Barth. In the opening lines of what came to be called the "Barmen Declaration," this confession declared obedience to Christ as the standard requiring resistance to Hitler and the

Andover Newton Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00154251692955723342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36658922.post-9558966918754032052007-05-31T12:41:00.001-04:002007-05-31T12:52:42.470-04:00

May 18, 2007 (People spread out from ends of rows to touch walls and hold hands with others) O God, this hour we call upon you anew In this place: Father, Word and Holy Spirit; Mother, Wisdom, Breath of Fire; You who spoke in light to frame the worlds, And meet us in their wonder, wonder at what we understand and wonder at what we do not; You who

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