The church is empty except for me, and it isn't really empty at all. It's early in the morning, and the only light comes from a single candle and the gray wash of dawn through a stained-glass window I can't quite make out yet... just shapes, blues and reds waiting for the sun to give them back their color. I've lit the incense. I watch it catch, watch the first curl of smoke lift off the incense and hang in the cold air like it's deciding whether to stay. Then it rises. It always rises. I...

We know what the disciples were doing in those ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost. Luke tells us they were huddled together in an upper room, praying, waiting, bewildered but obedient. A hundred and twenty of them, watching the door, watching the sky, watching each other. Waiting for something Jesus called "the promise of the Father" without quite knowing what that meant. But I have spent years turning a different question over in my mind. In doctoral seminars, in quiet rooms with...

Seven miles is an agonizing walk when your world collapses. The disciples on the Emmaus road simply put one foot in front of the other, moving away from where everything went wrong. They spoke in the hushed tones of people unsure they would survive the recent trauma. We had hoped he was the one. An ocean of loss exists in those six words. They mourned a future they believed God authored. This was a promised redemption they staked their lives upon, destined to end in glory until Friday. Then...