By Mark Ryan

Take Comfort by Mark Ryan (12/4/2014)
...in the later stages of planning. Our habit of pondering how good it would be to reach out to the lonely has not yet become a skill for making it happen. Or, perhaps, such skills are subject to perpetual atrophy. It may be that my Thanksgiving dinner, however sumptuous, unsettled me because of what I was bringing to the table. Instead of the labor of lovingly preparing food together with others,...
Deadly Distractions by Mark Ryan (10/9/2014)
...eligious authorities in the temple have passed from indignation to aggression. Only fear of the crowds is holding them back. (Mt 21:46) “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.” The king giving the banquet, we read, had a special guest list. However, even though the invitation is urgent, the select group will not be bothered to come. Some, react ...
The Self Under Attack by Mark Ryan (8/19/2014)
...only in conversation with others, though this is an important part of the process. We are also involved in a “self-conversation,” as the story of our lives will often be an uneasy weaving of various threads. These threads are born out of the transitions of our attachments and allegiances over time. Moreover, some new threads will be defined by overcoming earlier ones—i.e., the new, fit, and produc...
Something to Do by Mark Ryan (7/16/2014)
...of full time work for two years. To get this job was a homecoming: I was now “Lecturer in Christian Ethics” at a good university. What’s more, in coming to this position I am being welcomed by friends—friends associated with the EP, as it happens. Who I am, what I have to offer, has been affirmed by persons who know something of me. Given the specific nature of the position, I was being affirm...
Coming In, Going Out by Mark Ryan (5/7/2014)
... theologian, neighbor and coach does not end with how it makes me feel…” Rather, he avers, social desire seeks connection with others in a metaphysical framework that orients us socially, makes us whole in community. The Communion of Saints, he claims, embodies the kinship, with others and God, that grounds us cosmically. McCarthy’s words seem to me an explication of these terse few lines from ...
Doing Well to Remember, Remembering to Do Well by Mark Ryan (2/26/2014)
... “utilitarian consciousness”—related to the objects on which my gaze (restlessly) rests—mostly corporate logos for hotel chains, personal injury lawyers, and the occasional public health message “1 out of 5 American children suffers from…” I must admit to being a little shocked and embarrassed when I came across this particular billboard, somehow not apropos in the environment. Do you REALLY ne...
To Feel as Christians by Mark Ryan (10/30/2013)
...alone, to rejoice in you, from you, through you.” (Augustine, Confessions) The Christian life goes hand and hand with a peculiar palette of emotions. At times I’ve reflected that to be welcomed into Christian community–to realize that these defining convictions have become one’s own—is the prelude to (and condition for) feelings of anger and even a sense of alienation or being a s...
Praying for the Nation’s Peace and Justice by Mark Ryan (8/29/2013)
...ollowed by a short period of silence, and then: “Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.”)</blockquote> How does praying as the church, the holy people of God, united as one, inform our ability to pray for justice and peace in the nation? The passage from Jeremiah in this week’s lectionary addresses not only where Israel seeks security, but its very identity as God’s ...
Tensions in the Law by Mark Ryan (7/9/2013)
...ite’s will soon inhabit. In Luke, Jesus discusses Torah and its interpretation with a young lawyer as he journeys to Jerusalem, a journey that requires many Israelites to pass through the land of the Samaritans, a people in dubious relation to the law. In Psalm 82, God is the great judge holding council with the gods of the nations. As a member of a late modern society, I sense in myself a cert...
Overcoming Epistemology by Mark Ryan (5/23/2013)
...e, perhaps especially to the monotheistic believer, and it is therefore rightly called a “mystery.” However, attending to Trinitarian orthodoxy and its implication of us and God can bring spiritual renewal, when we first make ourselves aware of certain habits of thought we moderns possess that render the Trinity a moral and intellectual “problem.” Challenges to Trinitarian orthodoxy ...
Believing and Proclaiming by Mark Ryan (4/16/2013)
...ernoon was somewhat of an exception. When my dear mother in law instructed me in a whisper to ‘turn on the TV’—she was on the phone at the time—I felt a sense of foreboding. As I pondered the clicker, I felt caught between my habit of flatly refusing such invitations to be informed—a habit rooted in a general distrust that what the TV anchors would express as urgent truly was—and a nagging sense t...
Difficult Freedom by Mark Ryan (3/6/2013)
...xodus from Egypt and the Israelites’ wandering in the desert. Prior to the gospel reading, we sing “forty days and forty nights/thou was fasting in the wild/forty days and forty nights/tempted, and yet undefiled….” If the dramatic event of liberation from the tyrannical Pharaoh speaks to us clearly of what we are freed from, the desert experience is key to learning what we are freed for.<!--more--...
Holy Families? by Mark Ryan (12/26/2012)
...inction between happy and unhappy families is not a deep and important one. Perhaps Tolstoy meant to respect this important distinction when he wrote that “Happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” At the same time, I have often wondered how as a Christian the claiming of me by my family of origin and that of my family of adoption might be equally important in ...
A Right to an Answer? by Mark Ryan (10/17/2012)
...s” between Job and his friends (chs 3-31), the “Elihu speeches” (chs 32-37) and two speeches by God each followed by a response by Job (38.1-42.6). An epilogue (42.7-17) brings the book to a close. After setting the stage by the reading from the prologue, the lectionary catapults us into the center of the dialogue between Job and his friends. From last week’s selection (Job 23.1-9, 16-17), we ...
The Mystery of Agency by Mark Ryan (8/8/2012)
... his son and the seemingly inevitable course of violence. David’s desire for his son to be spared in the imminent attack upon his forces echoes his willingness for reconciliation following Absalom’s exile upon the killing of Amnon (2 Samuel 13:28-29). There, he joined in the prayer of a woman (a proxy for Joab) that the Lord be invoked so that “the avenger of blood slay no more.” (2 Samuel 14:1...
Speaking Out by Mark Ryan (4/10/2010)
...essibility (John 20:19-31). To begin with the scene in Acts 5:27, the text asks us to imagine a dramatic conflict where the revelation of God comes crashing up against the conventions—ideologies, really—that hold societies in place. “Did you not hear our orders?” asks the High Priest, with the implied further query, “don’t you know it is we who are responsible for common sense and good order ar...
Love and Virtue by Mark Ryan (1/25/2010)
...ll events… has on the whole chosen to base its picture of the Christian ideal not on any one of these scriptural foundations, but upon a pagan classification of virtue.” I find solace in Bishop Kirk’s ability to move beyond this paradox to discuss the cardinal virtues. He does so, however, emphasizing that, though they remain recognizable as the pagan virtues, they also undergo a transformation in...