james from lamentations 3

An Irish Catholic priest, returning to his old parish in the warmth of spring, was delighted to spot an elderly man he had long known. “Pat!” he called out cheerfully. “You’re still with us—I’m glad t...

In 1918, a chemical-fueled fire destroyed the inventor Thomas Edison’s factory in West Orange, New Jersey.. The flames consumed much of his life’s work, causing over two million dollars in damage. Yet...

I’ve known a lot of people who have lived painful, tragic lives. When I was young, I assumed these people were abnormal. Their suffering was the exception that proved the rule that a well-lived life i...

When Johann Sebastian Bach sought to convey the heart of Christian truth through music, he chose the Mass as his foundation. His B Minor Mass begins with a heartfelt plea from the full chorus and orch...

Gracious God, you forgive us whenever we ask, and so we ask you now to forgive all of our sins. We need your grace again, for we often return to the same sins, over and over again. Your Spirit longs t...

Gracious God, you have given us great mercy through Jesus, yet we have withheld mercy from others. Our hearts have been hardened by the world and our sin. Would you soften our hearts? And give us a de...

Heavenly Father, give us hearts that wait with faith. Build in us the assurance that you are at work and in control. Forgive us for our impatience, our uneasiness, and our wandering desires when we do...

Heavenly father, your faithfulness and love endure forever, yet our gratitude fades on a daily basis. For your blessings that we see and fail to acknowledge, please forgive us. For your blessings that...

O God, Giver of all good, and Fountain of all mercies, in whom are all the springs of our life; all glory, thanks and praise be unto thee for thine unfailing goodness; for thy faithfulness which is fr...

In our culture slow is a pejorative. When somebody has a low IQ, we dub him or her slow. When the service at a restaurant is lousy, we call it slow. When a movie is boring, again, we complain that it’...

Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.

Recovery is not a process we can will, but consists of experiencing many small deaths, the passing of significant anniversaries, until our identity is solid and natural in the pronoun “I.”

Waiting isn’t an in-between time. Instead, this often-hated and under-appreciated time has been a silent force that has shaped our social interactions. Waiting isn’t a hurdle keeping us from intimacy ...

My son has seizures and intellectual disabilities. A couple of years into that journey, I organized a global prayer vigil for my son. I recruited friends and colleagues in North America, South America...

All crises are judgments of history that call into question an existing state of affairs. They sift and sort the character and condition of a nation and its capacity to respond. The deeper the crisis,...

Dear Lord, Today I thought of the words of Vincent Van Gogh. It is true that there is an ebb and flow but the sea remains the sea. You, oh God, are the sea. Although I experience many ups and downs i...

Two construction workers had taken a lunch break and opened up their lunch boxes. One of them looked inside his box and said, “Not baloney again! I can’t believe it. I hate baloney. This is the third ...

Many of life’s annoyances just have to be ignored. That doesn’t mean that we suppress, ignore, or deny every pain. Serious pain has to be confronted. But one mark of resilience is learning to tell whi...

But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin...

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

Healing begins when, in the face of our own darkness, we recognize our helplessness and surrender our need for control… we face what is, and we ask for mercy.