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

Dear Peregrinus: You expressed to me what I have heard spoken almost constantly by others – that you find it distasteful having to choose between two (un-) presidential candidates. I know what you mean. But voting is something much deeper and more significant than merely choosing. Our English verb “to vote” derives from the Latin verb vōvere meaning “to vow; that is, solemnly to promise or formally to consecrate something" to God ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: It has been since July, old friend, since we wrote to each other. Thank you for your letter. I am smelling autumn in the air in the mornings. Autumn has such a striking capacity to access my soul – the smell of the earth; the diminishing brightness of the daylight; the leaves changing color and then letting go. Mine is an autumn soul, which becomes in this season a longing for something that I know not what ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: Good to hear from you, and thank you for sharing with me some of what you are feeling as you have watched on the TV what they call “news” concerning which a prophet once wrote – “More tortuous than anything is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) I have felt the same as you, but possibly I have been disturbed by all of this to a degree more than you let yourself be ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus: You write artfully, which I always experience as an expression of respect ... for yourself as much as for me. I deeply appreciate that you care about meaning. Nothing slapdash about you. Thank you. One of your thoughts caught my attention more than the others, because of the intensity of feeling you communicated with it. You wrote, “I am feeling bleakness at the choice of candidates foisted on us by our political system ...  Read More

Dear Peregrinus (Wednesday, 9 AM):The musician and businessman called Prince died, as your recent letter mentioned. (Thank you for writing by the way.) You knew about him a lot more than I did, and so I really cannot answer sufficiently your question about what I thought of him. But I did know a little about him, and so I reply this.During the coverage, I noticed his house, which did not look like...  Read More