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Christmas Advent: The Twenty-Ninth Day

Thin Places (Part III) More hectic than holy? If you visit Bethlehem today, you’ll find that it doesn’t have the same kind of pastoral, quiet and mystical aura of a thin place like Iona. There’s jostling with a long line of pilgrims waiting to get into the Church of the Nativity, monks yelling instructions to be quiet, cameras flashing, security officers mulling about — all for people to get one chance to touch the star

Christmas Advent: The Fifteenth Day

AN INDELIBLE IMAGE: two pregnant women, one of them just beginning to show, the other round and heavy, who is startled when her infant leaps in her womb. It’s a joyful scene, both everyday and extraordinary. For Elizabeth’s child, we are told, recognizes that Mary bears the Savior long promised to Israel. Mary is, as Elizabeth suddenly exclaims—no doubt after being kicked hard by John—the mother of the Lord. It usually takes a good kick