In a time when the public voice of Christianity is predominantly fundamentalist and predominantly anchored in reactionary politics, it is water in the desert to hear someone speak as the Queen did last Christmas and as she did so many times before that. I will miss her witness as a disciple profoundly.

One of the awful side effects of pandemic, at least for me and maybe for you, is the temptation to slide into cynicism, diffuse anger, and even contemptuous glee.

This summer – while on vacation and feeling vaguely sad – I read a marvelous essay by the contemporary writer Leslie Jamison. In it, Jamison wonders if we could allow ourselves to understand sadness “as something other than a feeling meant to be replaced,” if we could stop trying to cure sadness and instead allow that it might be beautiful.

In a funny way, it was the moment when I encountered the words Don’t panic in this latest rereading that I began to wonder if Adams’ book just might be a spiritual classic.

What do you do after an experience of desecration such as this? What, in particular, do we do as church?

Losing stuff drives me to distraction. I totally empathize with the characters in Jesus’ stories who search for things. Just like the woman who loses the coin and the shepherd who loses the sheep, when my keys go missing it’s hard for me to do much except to search and mutter.