Mark's Blog
From a Dentist’s Chair: Musings on Vulnerability
Last week I sat for two hours in a periodontist’s office while receiving a dental implant. My mouth was adequately and expertly numbed, and the only discomfort I felt was the anxiety I experienced when the periodontist began to drill into my jawbone. There was not...
I Versus We
Some fifty years ago, The Episcopal Church, along with many other Christian denominations, went through a liturgical upgrade. The Nicene Creed, which was first written in 325 during the Council of Nicea (and from which its name is derived), and which is said at most...
Stepping Out of Fear and Into Light and Hope
It was someone else’s story, but over the years I have retold it as if it has become my own. It was Gardner Taylor’s story, which he told at the end of a sermon during my first year of divinity school, nearly fifty years ago. Dr. Taylor was then the pastor of...
Where Does Evil Come From? How Best to Deal with It?
Several years ago, while still an active bishop, I facilitated a meeting that I suspected would not go well. It didn’t. People, including me, came in angry or scared – or both. Half the group resisted the agenda, and the other half resented the resisters. Nearly...
Our Shared Humanity is Threatened by Fear and a Siege Mentality
The challenge, Henri Nouwen said in a class I took with him nearly fifty years ago, is not to see how we are different, but how we are the same. Yes, there are differences, he acknowledged – gender, age, culture, race, religion, life experience; but at root we all...
The Promise of Peace and the Reality of Violence
“Glory to God in the highest”, the angels reportedly sang, “and peace to all people of goodwill.” The particulars of the Christmas story have been debated for centuries: was Mary really a virgin? Was there a cohort of angels flying around in the night sky? Did a...
Seeking Light in the World’s Darkness
On December 21, the shortest day of the year, we will be limited to nine hours of daylight. The deepening darkness is depressing. The lack of light presses on the soul; for some, it leads to SAD – seasonal affective disorder. (The circumstances will be reversed six...
Practicing Patience to Uncover Prejudice
The question is 2500 years old: “Do you have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?” It is perhaps the most famous question attributed to Lao Tzu (604-531 BC), considered...
Vulnerability: A Pathway to Hope and Justice
It was the opening question at the final presidential debate between Vice President Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis in October, 1988. CNN Moderator Bernard Shaw asked, “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis was raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty...