Dear Partner in Preaching, Oddly enough, there’s a scene from AMC’s record-breaking TV program The Walking Dead that popped into my head when reading this passage. No, no one turns brilliantly white. And there are no offers to build three booths. Rather, it’s a simple exchange between Rick Grimes, the sheriff who leads a band of survivors through a zombie-infested landscape and Herschel Greene, an older man who functions as something of a father-figure and mentor to Rick. They are discussing the horrors of their post-apocalyptic world when Herschel affirms that he still believes there is a plan to all this, that God has something in...

This past week while traveling, I started reading James Carroll’s Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age. While I spend most of my time on planes writing – emails, mostly, occasionally a post, not nearly enough just writing – I like to have a book with me during takeoff and landing, those times when “laptop computers must be shut.” Carroll, NY Times bestselling author of Constantine’s Sword picks up in this book his exploration of the relationship between Christians and Jews. But this time it’s less historical investigation than it is personal memoir combined with some biblical study...

Pretty much all I’ve got this morning are questions. Why do I like this poem so much? I don’t know, except perhaps, just now, the darker mysteries seem more transparent, or at least available, than the higher ones. What moves me about these lines? Still don’t know, except that just now I’m not sure I can bear a miracle that needs explaining but would be glad to receive a sign of what’s next, of what I should do, of what is even possible. Why, for that matter, is this a poem, as it feels as much like prose as poetry? Perhaps it’s the line breaks, or the imagery, or the lack of resolution, or the silent invitation. I just don’t...