Tag Archives: Grace

Secret Garden, Hidden Soul

The secret garden in Burnett’s novel works as a metaphor for the soul.

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Help Me Forget the Cold

L’Engle’s poem “The Winter Is Cold, Is Cold” describes a frozen heart that can melt only if it is willing to take a risk and love.

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Please God, Prepare a Fruitful Place

William Cowper has a lovely poem about the parable of the sower and the seed. Cowper wrestled with crippling depression and was afraid that his heart was too stony to receive God’s grace.

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O’Connor’s Christianity and Racism

“Artificial Nigger” can be read two ways–either as a story of sin and redemption or as a story of Whites finding unity by scapegoating Blacks. A definitive interpretation may depend on readers’ reactions.

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A Good Faith Is Hard To Find

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a profound meditation on doubt and faith.

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The Creator Spirit’s Deep Embrace

Denise Levertov’s “Avowal” equates opening oneself to God to opening oneself to “the Creator Spirit.”

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Reaching Out for the Anchoring Pole

In “Vineyard Stories” poet Anne Higgins combines three of Jesus’s parables to imagine a vineyard where all can come and feast.

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The Transcendent Properties of Food

“Babette’s Feast” is about a sumptuous banquet that descends upon a querulous community like an act of grace, thereby allowing the spirit to flow again. In other words, it’s a good film to watch these days when our own communities are troubled and having difficulty coming together.

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Butterfly Wings, Easter Transformation

Spiritual Sunday In the Episcopal church we are still in the season of Easter, which is coinciding this year with a particularly beautiful spring.  I’ve therefore chosen another Easter poem for “Spiritual Sunday.” This is an emblem poem by my favorite religious poet, George Herbert.  It is entitled “Easter Wings”: Lord, Who createdst man in […]

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