Seeing the “far side” of the Moon as it transits the sunlit Earth[1] Dear Peregrinus (Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time):I have been thinking about syzygy.[2] You? No, it was not a New York Times crossword puzzle that compelled my interest in this noun (I don’t do crossword puzzles), but the poetic loveliness of the names given the full Moons of the year by different tribes[3] of the First Nations[4] ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: My goodness it has been some weeks since last we communicated - it was before Lent began on February 14th. My time was taken up with writing the Lenten Meditations each week, which I hope that you read. They are some of my best work. We both have been fully deployed, which is our practice of kenosis ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Happy new year to you, old friend, by which I do not mean from January 1st onwards, but rather according to what our Christian tradition instructs. Our new year, each year, begins with the first Sunday of Advent. Consequently our “new year” happened on 3 December 2017, when we heard read from Mark's Gospel these words: "Be watchful! Be Alert! ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Thank you for writing back to me, and for that quotation you sent from Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina;(written 1875-1877): Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. Though it has been years since I read that novel from that great-souled author, I can remember now what I felt like then. It is not ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus (4:22 PM):Thank you for your letter and for passing along to me the kind words spoken to you about the study trip to Oxford University that Steve (and Thanne) and I led during the last week of August and into the first couple of days of September.Have you ever wondered why “September” (meaning the “seventh” month) is actually the ninth month of the year?[1]September is the month of...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: I imagine that all of us in the Pacific Northwest are praying that the rain that has come today to our region for the first time in almost four months will mark the beginning of Autumn’s confident habit! The incomparable Emily captures well how a dry land marks the preciousness of the individual drops of rain when the rain first arrives after a long absence. A drop fell on the apple tree...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: The high heat in Portland has for the moment expended itself. This means – to speak only about me and my comfort! – that the temperature in my office registers today a temperature less than 80-degrees for the first time in five weeks. My later afternoons each day have been “wilted” ones. I have been thirsty, a lot. For a second she stared here and there, wondering...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Finally our Summer here has gained the confidence it lacked in June. Good! You asked me whether we could, or dare to, attribute to Jesus “mistakes.” The possibility that He could make mistakes has unsettled you. I had remarked to you how I had noticed in both the Gospel of Mark and Luke that Jesus, as he commenced His public life, “appears to have come on too strong ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: It has been awhile since we traded letters, and so I feel happy again to be in contact with your good self. Thank you for our many years of real conversation, in which we – you and I - are always at the work of words. We could say of our friendship that “in the beginning was the word” –John 1:1-5 At the beginning God expressed himself....  Read More

A rewriting of Colossians 2:6-23By Mary EdmondsSo then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught (possibly by your own mother), and overflowing with thankfulness; for when you are overflowing with thankfulness, there is no room for bitterness and resentment, which are planted by the Enemy.See to it ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: In a text by Romano Guardini (1885-1986) I found this: “The animal does not err in matters concerned with the conduct of its life. If it does, it is sick and it perishes. But a person can err, and so he or she is confronted with the task of learning.” You wrote to me about the inner tumult you have felt roiling your peace before, during, and after the national election ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: When I read your letter, I remembered a line (which it took me some time to locate) from that redoubtable Englishman:G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) – “The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.” Does it not seem that we Americans have fallen into the bad habit ...  Read More