The 40 days of Lent are desert times.  The season, which extends from February 22nd to April 8th this year, reminds us of the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the Judean wilderness (Matthew 4:1-2).  It recalls the 40 years that the children of ancient Israel traveled through the Sinai desert (Numbers 14:33).  Lent is… Read More

Questions of identity get at the heart of the Christian life.  I had a spiritual director out in Connecticut who was fond of saying that the core spiritual question is, ‘Who am I?’  I originally met with this director not to talk about myself, but to talk about God.   I had read Richard Foster’s A… Read More

Night grows long this time of year. Back on June 21st, the summer solstice, daylight stretched more than four hours longer each day than it will through this month of December. I often wonder how people living much further from the equator than us manage through the long, dark days of winter. In Barrow, the… Read More