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THE SHEPHERD SEASON
Christmas 2025 Merry Christmas in these unmerry times. Last night, Christmas eve, we once again sang Christina Rosetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter,” set to that gorgeous Gustav Holst tune. It begins, as you probably know, with snow, a sort of “White Christmas” from a different time and a different place: In the bleak midwinterfrosty wind…
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GO AND SEE: A CHRISTMAS MEDITATION
The church we attend in Tucson, St. Philip’s in the Hills (don’t you love church names with directions in them), includes in its weekly worship schedule a choral evensong service. The short service, based on the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and almost entirely sung by one of St Philip’s choirs, attracts only a handful…
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Anselm Kiefer and Hope: A Christmas Meditation
To plunge into the art of Anselm Kiefer is to plunge into controversy. Is his art a profound meditation on the human condition or sophisticated kitsch? Is it monumental or bombastic? Is it liberating and brave or dour and depressing? (For a recent evaluation of Kiefer’s art, see Daniel A. Seidell, “Where Do You Stand?…
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A CHRISTMAS MEDITATION
Christmas is never the New Testament’s first thought. The stories of the birth of Jesus are found in only two of the gospels, Matthew and Luke. Our Christmas celebrations and songs are narrower still, mostly from Luke. Matthew’s account we slip in and around the Luke story as best we can, putting camels in our…
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SMALL KINDNESSES: AN ADVENT MEDITATION
In 1985, Robert Fulgham wrote an essay that later became the bestselling book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1990). It went viral. Fulgham’s premise was that the simple rules that children learn in kindergarten serve just as well in adult life, such things as: Share everything.Play fair.Don’t hit people.Put things…