Root your life in Scripture

This spring, when the last frost had gone and the world seemed suddenly washed in green, a friend gave my family six tomato plants.  My daughters helped me pick them out from the varieties on offer—cherry, slicers, sauce— and we took them home to plant in the warming soil.  In my front yard, the sunniest option, I had two garden beds from which to choose, both recently cleared of their winter cover of greens.  This was my first spring planting into the mature beds and what it revealed to me was a lesson in prayer. I am a reader of too many gardening books, always experimenting with what I l...

“Bless your heart.”  Three simple and seemingly innocuous words that, when combined, have the power to convey previously unimaginable meaning. With a sweet tea in hand, the American Southerner exhibits true mastery of this phrase, using it at times to express sympathy, affection, and surprise, while equally able to convey exasperation, disgust, or pity. Ironically, rarely do these words communicate the one thing they actually promise: blessing. From early childhood, we are taught that words carry little meaning, that they “can never hurt me.” It’s the sticks and stones we need to worry abo...

Abba Moses (“Father” Moses) was a Christian desert monk in the 4th century A.D. Famous for his holiness and wise sayings, many people would come to him for advice. They often got more than they bargained for! A man once came to him, asking for a word of wisdom about how to grow in the spiritual life. Abba Moses responded: “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Close down your options, Abba Moses was saying. Get alone, away from “everything," and see what God has to say. In the book of Isaiah, God’s people have become preoccupied with the fears and false hopes ...

If you asked a friend, ‘When does your day start?”, you might hear something like: “7 A.M. sharp,” “When the kids are up,” or “When my husband brings me coffee.” You probably wouldn’t hear: “When I go to bed.”  If you did, you would probably think, “sleeping problems,” or “new baby,” or “no work-life boundaries!” Most of us wouldn’t take it literally.  But in traditional Jewish culture and in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which takes a lot of its cues from our Jewish-Christian roots, a new day can begin, not only when the sun rises, but when the sun goes down.  One place we see this in Scr...