Tag Archives: death

A Wedding Charge: On Being an Icon of Love and Death

A Wedding Charge: On Being an Icon of Love and Death

Posted on 03. Jun, 2010 by Tim Stoner.

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They asked me to deliver a serious charge about marriage. And after I was done and they had taken their vows they were going to be participating in the Eucharist as their first act together as husband and wife. So, I spoke to them about sacraments: about the transformative, communal, liturgical act they were engaged in and would be participating in–for the rest of their lives. I spoke about being a holy icon of the gospel for the whole world. And, since they wanted me to be serious and real, and I wanted them to be properly prepared for what was ahead, I charged them (especially the young husband-to-be) with the committment to die. Sacraments are costly and demanding things, after all.

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Death and Life and Haiti’s Audacious Hope

Death and Life and Haiti’s Audacious Hope

Posted on 19. Jan, 2010 by Tim Stoner.

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An employee of Compassion international was rescued after almost three days in the elevator shaft of the Hotel Montana. I was at that hotel 14 months ago. Had the earthquake hit when I was on the scenic balcony on my cell with my wife Patty, the last thing she would have heard would have been the cracking of cement, and perhaps a scream of terror as the balcony plunged down onto the barking dogs below. Though 100 lives have been accounted for 200 have not. But, what amazes me, despite the terrible losses, is the audacious hope of thousands that march clapping and singing out their joy and thanksgiving and confidence in a God they know still reigns.

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An Awful Beauty

An Awful Beauty

Posted on 02. Jul, 2009 by Tim Stoner.

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Are we to pretend the bad and the gruesome and the ugly don’t exist? Or is it the task of the Christian artist to show how God is present and or pitches His tent in the middle of the awful? That He is there in the bloody awful terror and loss of starvation, of disease, of war? Is an aspect of our calling to look fiercely and unflinchingly into and through the unbeautiful to expose the mystery of God hidden in the darkness; grace breaking out like a song on the bruised lips of a battered child?

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Death is a Terrible Price to Pay

Death is a Terrible Price to Pay

Posted on 29. Jun, 2009 by Tim Stoner.

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This past week two popular icons died, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Two newspaper pictures of them prompted this rumination on death. In both there is death even while there is life. Michael’s face over the years became more a mask than a face. And it bore uncanny resemblance to a skull. Farrah’s picture shows a once-lovely woman with a taut semi-smile and eyes that are not smiling at all. There is no emotion, no sparkle, there is this bleak sorrow, and a terrible emptiness.

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