A Single Layer

Driving home from our Good Friday service this evening, I was reminded of the night years ago when I went with my college friends to see The Passion of the Christ in theaters. I was worried about seeing the movie with so many people, because each of us responds to gravity in different ways. I didn't want to be pulled out of the experience because someone couldn't handle grief or awe in silence, and yet I also wanted to experience those things in community. It was a risk worth taking. In the end I sat next to a good friend who understood more than most people how to serve and be served by others in the weighty moments. I don't think we said a word to each other during or after the film, but we certainly felt free to cry. Another friend drove me home, and we were mostly silent the entire way. I know that at some point we discussed it, but I can't remember when. Whenever it was, it was the right time. Knowing the time, and understanding the space surrounding grief is...

For those not paying very much attention, we are in the midst of Lent. Among other things, Lent is the season in which we observe a humility that remembers our shortfall, the great distance between what we are on our own and what Christ has called us toward, made us for, and redeemed us into. I've quoted Richard John Neuhaus before, a line that I remember particularly during Lent every year: "About chief of sinners I don't know, but what I know about sinners I know chiefly about me." This comes from his book Death on a Friday Afternoon , which I probably mention every year about the same time I'm reminded of this line. I was reminded of it again yesterday while reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together . He addresses the same question, Who among us is the chief of sinners? with the same answer. It brought me back to Neuhaus today, and I think rather than talking about it more, I'll just give you a small passage: "I may think it modesty when ...