A few weeks ago, after a very poor sleep, I got up one morning with unhappy thoughts racing through my head. I got ready for work with my usual array of podcasts, though I wasn’t really able to hear any of them. Finally, as I was walking down the hill which forms the first part … Continue reading Silence
Last week, I wrote about the problems we have in our culture talking about sin. I ended the post saying that I think a helpful way forward in developing our ability to talk about it is to reclaim the biblical metaphors that underlie unhelpful translations like ‘sin’ and ‘wickedness’. As I was contemplating this, I … Continue reading Living and Effective
A couple years ago, I stumbled across the text of Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The title says it all. The sermon’s primary aim was to convince people of the horrors of Hell and to use this fear to spur them to repentance. I have to admit that … Continue reading Missing the Mark (or, Talking about Sin)
This week was the first full week of Lent, and so I wanted the practice for this week to be a specifically Lenten practice. And, since I first encountered it twelve years ago, no practice has jumped out at me as being ‘more’ Lenten, than the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian. The famed … Continue reading Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian
One of the books that has had a disproportionate impact on me has been Ben Okri’s delightful myth Astonishing the Gods, which tells the story of a young man’s mystical journey through a enchanted island city. One of the book’s themes is learning what you already know, the idea that we keep on having to … Continue reading Learning and Learning Again
Matthew Root 