A Superabundance of Blessing (A reflection on John 6)

I’ve been haunted this week by a line from Sunday’s Gospel reading. The Gospel appointed for Sunday was John’s telling of the story of the feeding of the five thousand. After the small amount of food brought forward is blessed and distributed and everyone has their fill, Jesus tells his disciples, “Gather up the fragments … Continue reading A Superabundance of Blessing (A reflection on John 6)

Sacred Practices: Integral Hermeneutic

Sacred Practices: Integral Hermeneutic

This week’s practice is a little different from most. It isn’t an established practice or intervention. But rather, after having spent a couple months thinking through what an integral approach to Scripture reading might look like, I felt I needed to take these ideas for a few test drives. And since it had been a … Continue reading Sacred Practices: Integral Hermeneutic

Open eyes, Open hearts

[This is more or less the text of a sermon I gave on the fifth Sunday after Pentecost 2018.] One of the first things I did when I moved to Toronto was buy a membership to the AGO. I work just down the street from it and so sometimes on a frustrating workday, I’ll sneak … Continue reading Open eyes, Open hearts

Toward an Integral Hermeneutic: Complexity

So far in this series on developing an integral hermeneutic, I’ve talked about the need to read our Scriptures through a growth-oriented lens, with a holistic, multi-perspectival approach, and by integrating the wisdom of past and present ages. But you may have noticed that we seem to be circling around a similar set of ideas, … Continue reading Toward an Integral Hermeneutic: Complexity

Toward an Integral Hermeneutic: Integrating

We are truly in a unique position in history. Just think about it: at any given moment most us have access to essentially the entirety of human knowledge, often right in our front pocket. This kind of access to the wisdom of the whole world has historically been simply unthinkable. This state of affairs clearly … Continue reading Toward an Integral Hermeneutic: Integrating