FEBRUARY 7: THE BLESSEDNESS IN BEAUTY
Some several weeks ago now, an editor asked me to name the one book I thought should be laid along side the Bible and read in conjunction with it. My answer was immediate: The Norton Anthology of Poetry....
JANUARY 3: AGE-OLD QUESTIONS FOR A NEW YEAR
It is sometimes in childhood that we have the clarity and awareness to question God at the deepest level.
DECEMBER 6: THE BLESSING OF WAKING AND SLEEPING
Soft December mornings and poems of waking are, for Phyllis Tickle, poignant reminders of what God wants for every man, woman and child.
NOVEMBER 1: THE EMERGENCE UPON US
For the first Sunday in November, Phyllis Tickle reflects on a meeting on Emergence Christianity that showed, without a doubt, that Christianity is on the move toward a new phase of being.
OCTOBER 4: A MONTH FOR REST AND SILENCE
From early on, Phyllis Tickle has been enamored with the cool of October, its silence and its invitation to rest, and perhaps reflect a bit.
SEPTEMBER 6: THE HOLY PLACE BETWEEN MYTH AND THEOLOGY
This month brings some of the holiest days in world religions and a few thoughts from Phyllis Tickle on the intersection of myth and theology.
AUGUST 2: THE PLAY'S THE THING
Phyllis Tickle reflects on her latest endeavor, that of writing a liturgical drama
JULY 5: ON POETRY AND PATRIOTS
Early on, Phyllis Tickle learned from her father that in poems we can often best celebrate our own birth as children of God, and the birth of our nation.
JUNE 7: THE PUREST KIND OF FORGIVENESS
Once in a while there is a story that teaches about forgiveness in profound and lasting ways. For this month's First Sunday, Phyllis Tickle writes of such a story, one that will stay with you, as it has with her.
MAY 3: THE WITCH OF ENDOR
One can spend a great deal of time parsing out who the Witch of Endor actually was, not to mention fretting over what exactly is meant by the use
of the
term witch in the Hebrew original. ... By whatever name one gives her
or her art, she conjured the dead.
APRIL 5: TIPS FOR READING THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL
Most of us probably would
concur that, like it or not, we are
Judeo-Christianized in aggregate, whether or
not we be observant
Christians or Jews privately. We would also concur that
there are a
number of purely secular advantages to this state of affairs.
MARCH 1: BEER & BIBLE
Last Tuesday night, I was sitting in a pub, enjoying the beer
and the
camaraderie of an evening of “pub theology,” when the conversation veered
into what I thought—and still think—is a direction worth pondering for
a long,
long time … or at the very least, worth pondering from Tuesday
until Sunday.
FEBRUARY 1: SEX, PRAYER AND HOW ON EARTH THESE TWO FIT TOGETHER
For February, the month of love and romance, Phyllis Tickle's First Sunday blog has some plain-spoken truths about the much-publicized marriage advice from Grapevine, Texas.
JANUARY 4: WAITING FOR THE EPIPHANY
"I don’t really know how to
engage Jesus, the
infant, or even Jesus, the toddler. And aside from the
theological and
incarnational implications involved, I can’t even get excited
about His
ever having been such. I just want to rush through all that stuff and
get to the Man…"
DECEMBER 7: SLIPPING INTO THE MYSTERY THIS ADVENT
There are few things in life that I
am truly “fixated” on, in the sense
of never really being able to let them go … But there is undeniably one story that I have spent my life in
thrall to; and this being the First Sunday of a month, and second Sunday in
Advent, I cannot shake off my need to tell that story
once again
.
OCTOBER 5: A CHANCE FOR CHANGE
Today is a day of considerable significance, perhaps even of
great
significance. We won’t know which descriptor is the more accurate for
several months, of course, maybe even not for a few years; but for
right now,
there is no question that calling this Sunday a significant
one is the very
least we can say of it....
AN INTRODUCTION
In this endeavor, I hope
two things: I hope I shall ride the circuit
responsibly, and I hope you
will
ride it with me, commencing
on October 5th when “First
Sundays” will
begin
running in this space.
NOVEMBER 2: THOUGHTS ON TRAVEL AND TREES
A man—a genteel and gracious older man who, with his wife,
was my host
at a Sunday luncheon some few weeks ago—asked me if I enjoyed
traveling
as much as I do. There was about the directness of the question and
the
directness of his gaze an intensity which told me that his was not some idle
question offered up for the sake of making social conversation. He
truly wanted
to know.
