Spiritual Sunday Today’s poem, a fabulous sonnet by my favorite religious poet, is also very much in the spirit of the times given our mortgage foreclosure crisis. The latest news is that federal attempts to aid homeowners have been meeting with indifferent success and that people continue to lose their homes. George Herbert’s “Redemption” (1633) […]
Tag Archives: Religion
Washing Away Michael Vick’s Sins
Spiritual Sunday In a follow-up to yesterday’s post on football quarterback Michael Vick, I want to elaborate further on Coleridge’s argument for penance. Penance is not only the right thing to do. It also can make you feel very, very good. Coleridge gives us images in Rime of the Ancient Mariner that drive this point […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Football, Michael Vick, Redemption, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sin, Sports, T. S. Eliot, Wasteland Comments closed
A Poem about the Stoning of Women
My colleague Jeff Coleman recently wrote the following poem about the stoning of women in places like Somalia, Iran, and Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan. He tells me the poem was triggered by an article in the New York Times about Iranian executions, but for me it brought to mind the Somalian stoning two years ago […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "First Light", Feminism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Jeff Coleman Comments closed
Blasphemy + Laughter, Not All Bad
Spiritual Sunday I was teaching Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale on Friday and had a sudden insight: laughter, even blasphemous laughter, is not an enemy to spirituality. In fact, it can be a means of deepening our connection with the divine. I will make my case through Chaucer. The Miller’s Tale is about as bawdy as it […]
The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want
Spiritual Sunday This past Sunday in our Episcopal Church, the 23rd psalm, it seems, was everywhere. We read the psalm itself aloud and sang two or three hymns that were versions of it. The gospel lesson dealt with the parable of the lost sheep, a comforting passage given its assertion that “the good shepherd” loves […]
The Church and the Chimney-Sweep’s Cry
In his August 29 Washington Mall speech, rightwing television commentator Glenn Beck attacked (among other things) the notion that Christianity should be concerned with issues of social justice. He accused Barack Obama and liberation theology of distorting Jesus’s message. For the President, Beck said, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Chimney Sweep", Children, Christianity, oppression, William Blake Comments closed
Believe in the Utter Sweetness of Your Life
A beautiful Yom Kippur poem by Philip Schultz.
Entering the Days of Awe
Spiritual Sunday Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time of year when Jews do a spiritual self assessment and take upon themselves responsibility for the sins of the world. As the “days of awe” commence this coming Wednesday, I went looking for a good Rosh Hashanah poem. I found an excellent one by […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Days of Awe", Alicia Ostriker, Judaism, Rosh Hashanah Comments closed
Hear the Words under the Words
Spiritual Sunday I’m trying not to overreact to the anti-Muslim sentiment blowing through the United States at the moment. I keep telling myself that there is a core decency to Americans and that most are not stampeded into hysterical hatred by demagogic political and religious leaders. Although the United States has not always welcomed […]
