by Mark Hamilton | Dec 19, 2011 | Uncategorized
This time of year, I need to come clean about something. I too am part of the excessive consumption and sappy sentimentality. I like the music, and not just Ave Maria or Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, but also Bing Crosby and Tony Bennett and even, in moments of...
by Mark Hamilton | Dec 6, 2011 | Uncategorized
David Prital tells the story of the Baptist Ukrainians who rescued him, a Jew from the Nazis. The poor farmer brought him into their hut and said to his wife, “’God brought an important guest to our house’,” he said to his wife. ‘We should thank...
by Mark Hamilton | Nov 28, 2011 | Uncategorized
The retreat from regret, the aching sorrow that crushes a spirit and snuffs out the first flicker of hope and goodness, begins with repentance. Repentance allows us to cast away shame by acknowledging it and refusing to give it control over our lives, a control...
by Mark Hamilton | Nov 15, 2011 | Uncategorized
With this post, we reach a point 1/3 of the way through the Psalter. And a lovely point it is. Psalm 50 raises a question previously unasked in the Psalter, at least in precisely this way: what does God want from human beings? If we remember that ancient people saw...
by Mark Hamilton | Oct 25, 2011 | Uncategorized
Sometimes, you read something that you know is true, but it puzzles you anyway. An example comes in Psalm 49, a wisdom reflection that calls itself a mashal or proverb. Notice the line in verse 16 (Hebrew 17): “Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when...
by Mark Hamilton | Oct 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
Christians and Jews have acquired unusual views of what constitutes beauty. We tend to start with the idea that God is, by definition, beautiful. I’m sure that’s true, as far as it goes. But even that’s a difficult concept, since the God of the...
