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Last summer I moved from Wheaton, Illinois, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, from a city with no synagogues and a nearly invisible Jewish population to a city with several synagogues, a couple of active Jewish student ministries, and a vibrant Jewish community. When I learned that I would be moving, I started looking forward to something that, sorry to say, had not been a part of my ministry previously--namely, interfaith dialogue. After several months in Ann Arbor, I'm thinking that I…

As I look out of my office window, I see sky and the tops of trees. That's because a foot of snow sits on the outside sill of my window, blocking most of my view. The world is blanketed in snow, giving off an incandescent glow; in other words, the world is white-robed. In Latin that would be candidatus, white-robed. Roman men who were seeking office had to wear white robes, candidates, to indicate to the people who saw them…

These days, when appearing at events where I am scheduled to speak, I am often asked whether any hymns will be quoted. I think it is fair to say that I have gotten a reputation of sorts for doing that kind of thing, but it is a reputation that comes naturally. My preacher-father, who regularly quoted some lines from a hymn to nail down a point he was trying to make in a sermon, schooled me in the practice. Sometimes…

"Shame on you." And then he walked away. I am stunned, and something inside me breaks. The people continue to stream out the sanctuary door. But I'm having difficulty focusing on them. Quite a few say lovely things about the service, the sermon, the music. But I'm having difficulty hearing them. What I hear instead is shame. On me. A sermon illustration had been misunderstood, turned in a different direction than I had intended, and so had been judged wrong,…

Down in the church basement, we're sitting in the lady minister's office, the nine of us. Pilgrims, Claudette calls us, herself included. Claudette is the lady minister and what we all call her, as opposed to Pastor Claudette or Dr. Warren or another title of respect. Claudette is the first and only lady minister ever to join the staff of six other pastors at this large and wealthy church. She doesn't seem to mind having been placed in the basement…

River skimmed with ice, white birch limbs swinging as birds launch toward blue sky Conifer fragrance as the wind blows, scattering. . . grave plots not yet sold Sun and partial clouds on her only child's grave flowers re-arranged Racket of the crows beyond cemetery pines . . . the casket's silence Snowfall on and off . . . no longer a clear footprint where the funeral was A dead willow branch balances on a live one . . .…

The canoe glides like wind From marsh out into freer water Remote pink forest melds slowly Into close wall of green. The opaque lake borrows Color where it can, From tree leaf to raspberry sun, To the blur of faces. Ripple, light, motion, Fog breath, wood duck, fish splash. Sometimes, the boughs are birdless. Sometimes a warbler trills . . . Such a small beak to contain The only song worth singing. --John Grey John Grey is an Australian-born poet,…

It is no secret that the Reformed tradition can take shape in forms that are deeply sectarian, provincial, and polemical. But if we were to diagnose the cause of such instantiations of Reformed faith, I think we would find one common cause: memory loss. In particular, such sectarian versions of Reformed identity tend to see themselves as relatively new inventions, or new recoveries of the "true" faith. The most polemical and schismatic permutations of Reformed faith and practice thus tend…