“Water You turned into wine; Opened the eyes of the blind; There’s no one like you; None like you; Into the darkness You shine; Out of the ashes we rise; There’s No one like you; None like you” In 2010 Chris Tomlin recorded these opening lyrics to “Our God” at a Passion Conference. He couldn’t…
Kilkenny lies deep in southern Ireland. Its history lies just as deep in the medieval past. The thirteenth-century cathedral of St. Canice stands next to a 9th-century monastic tower; a castle still sits on the site of William Marshall’s 12th-century Norman foundations; and a fourteenth-century inn, Kyteler’s Inn, still operates in the old town.The inn…
Riding the London Eye is deceptively peaceful. The city that slowly unfolds below seems a different place from the noise and heat of the crowded South Bank. I always look first for Cleopatra’s Needle, the 3500 year-old Egyptian obelisk shipped to England in the nineteenth-century and hoisted along the Victorian Embankment Gardens. The startling incongruity…
Several months ago I heard a catchy phrase preached in a sermon. But it wasn’t until recently, when I began to compare popular medieval Bible verses with popular modern bible verses (thanks Bible Gateway!), that I began to think about the phrase more critically. So what is the phrase? “Information does not equal transformation.” Not…
My husband recently noted in his Facebook series on local church highlights in Waco, TX, (yes, we live–literally–in the middle of the Fixer Upper world) how modern Protestants characterize the Medieval church as keeping people from the Bible. I have talked about medieval views of the Bible on this blog several times, including “Banning the…
If you ever have the chance, visit the church of St. Bartholomew the Great in London St. Bart’s, as it is affectionately known, stands in Smithfield, just outside the old London wall. I recommend a Sunday morning walk to it from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Go about 9:45 a.m. to hear the Cathedral bells; you can…