God and the "Me" Generation

[Rabbi Harold] Kushner's book [When Bad Things Happen to Good People] was a best seller not only because it is so well written, but also because it ...

Self-Love First?

The reigning cliche of the day is that in order to love others one must first learn to love oneself. This formulation--love thyself, then thy neighbor--is ...

Sounding the Magical Note

All preachers must struggle for that magical note somewhere between a trumpet of uncertain sound that brings no one to battle and the tin horn that thinks ...

Letting God Be God

Humility is facing the truth. It is useful to remind myself that the word itself comes from humus, earth, and in the end simply means that I allow myself ...

False Humility

"My sermon today is on humility, and in my opinion, it's one of the finest pieces ever written."

Invictus Revisited

When I was young, a poem often quoted was "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley.

"Out of the night that covers me, black as a pit from pole ...

Don't Look for Yourself

Look for yourself and you will find in the long run hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and ...

Confidence Game

When we look back on what the masters of the spiritual life have written and said, it's hard to escape the conclusion that we have been the victim ...

Self-Centered Sin

I can remember when I was an undergraduate student, how enlightening it was to learn from William Temple that what the Bible means by sin is "self-centeredness." ...

Self-Consciousness Hurts

When a little child becomes conscious of being a little child, the child-likeness is gone; and when a saint becomes conscious of being a saint, something ...