Active studies in the text of Scripture
“Healing place of the soul”
carved over the library door at the Abbey of Saint Gall, 1781
First hear Jesus on his own terms — then follow the studies that grow out of his words.
A distillation and indexing of everything Jesus himself said — the kingdom announced, the commands, parables, warnings & promises — heard on their own terms, without bringing in Pauline interpretations.
Sixteen verses on treasure, the single eye, mammon and anxiety, taken word by word in the Greek — with Evagrius, Chrysostom, Augustine, Calvin, Wesley, Bonhoeffer, Merton and Willard at the desk, and five questions answered plainly: what the verb behind “do not worry” actually forbids, whether the body is inside it, and what the kingdom turns out to be.
Jesus’s practices, surprising actions, and particular ways of meeting people, studied in Scripture and the early interpreters. Begin with his prayer for those crucifying him: “Father, forgive them.”
A study of the coming Kingdom of God and what the Bible wants us to know — the prophets’ hope, the already & not-yet, the resurrection of the body, and the renewal of all things.
The men and women who followed him — particular companions, read first-hand.
Saints, elders, and spiritual teachers as particular companions in the way of Jesus. Read Francis of Assisi, Dorotheus of Gaza, Basil the Great, Meister Eckhart, and Thomas Keating: lives, writings, practices, and primary sources.
The texts the witnesses wrote — read whole, not through their interpreters.
The contemplative tradition read first-hand rather than through its modern interpreters — whole texts, set to be actually read. On the shelf: Dionysius’s Mystical Theology and Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on Ecclesiastes, complete, a chapter to a page.
What the witnesses read, practised, and confessed — set here to be practised, not only admired.
The month-long retreat a wounded Basque soldier wrote at Manresa and spent twenty-five years revising — complete in Elder Mullan’s 1914 English from the Spanish autograph. All four Weeks, the Annotations, the fifty-one Mysteries, and every set of Rules, unabridged. No commentary, no verdict: the text, whole.
The rules that shape a community’s prayer, work, possessions, and life together. Begin with the Franciscan Order: the approved rule still professed today and the surviving earlier rule of Francis of Assisi.
The church’s shared confessions of faith, set for reading and printing. Begin with the Nicene Creed, with the later Western addition “and the Son” marked in a contrasting color.
Walk through the church’s year across traditions. Begin with Advent and Christmas 2026: the fasts, the four Sundays, the Nativity, and the January feasts in Eastern Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant life.
Twelve forks in the church’s long road — authority, grace, the table, the water, the saints — each side stated at its strongest. Answer all twelve and be named a tradition, from Rome and the East to Wittenberg, Geneva, and Azusa Street. No verdicts; your answers stay in your browser.
The whole desk, cut small enough to carry — every page here on the phone, and nothing fetched to read one. The early church made its books miniature so they could be taken along; this is that, for this desk.
Church history, TULIP, intercession, stigmata, In the Empire, and the orthodoxy reference table — off the desk and onto the shelf. Every page still lives at the address it always had.