Thursday, July 26, 2018 | Reflections
I’ve learned a great deal from other teachers I’ve known. Some have shown me what not to do. But there was also a professional mentor who continually reminded me that I should never make anyone look foolish; and many, many years earlier, an elementary school teacher...
Thursday, July 26, 2018 | Reflections
Matthew 26:69-75 I feel a kinship with Peter. He was a man with a passionate heart, an impetuousness that led him to say the wrong thing and ask the foolish question more often than not. I do that. I think I know what’s right, and I blurt it out. If I...
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Reflections
“Table for two?” I felt like the hostess at a fine restaurant, and yet here I was at the largest feeding center in New York. Whether street people or the working poor, the guests at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen were receiving a nutritious meal—and they were being served...
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Reflections
Yesterday morning, I rose early, and took my prayer book and Bible out into the fields, meadows, and woods that surround the cabin where I am staying for a mini-retreat, as a busy month draws to a close. This summer has brought even more changes and challenges than...
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | Reflections
I don’t like funerals, and yet, I believe the Episcopal liturgy gets some very important things right. One of these is the reading by the priest during the procession into the church. In the words of Rite I, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to...
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | Reflections
You know how sometimes certain things happen, over and over again, and it seems to be more than just coincidence? Like sometimes a favorite song comes on and reminds you to call someone that needs some extra love. Or you see a loved one’s favorite bird at your bird...
Monday, July 23, 2018 | Reflections
I was doing my best to keep it together. While my mother lay terminally ill in a hospital nearly three hours away, I was tending to the ordinary business of my life—buying groceries, paying bills, and going to the bank. I was being strong.It was at the drive-in window...
Monday, July 23, 2018 | Reflections
Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene. So often mentioned and so often misunderstood. The first lesson is from Judith (9:1,11-14), the prayer she makes just before she goes and beheads Holofernes. A marvelous act of espionage and assassination, but not exactly...
Sunday, July 22, 2018 | Reflections
“You can’t talk? How can you stand that?” Just watch and see, I wanted to tell my friends. I stood it just fine. For nine successive spring breaks, I traveled to a retreat center in South Texas, where silence was the rule. When I arrived, I shed my watch and took a...
Sunday, July 22, 2018 | Reflections
Mary Magdalene…. Who was she? Who are we? Feast Day of Mary Magdalene Pure and simple, Mary Magdalene has been made to be what men needed her to be. That doesn’t make her a sinner or a saint, it makes her a woman. Millions of pixels have...
Saturday, July 21, 2018 | Reflections
Standing in the center of the dog park, my cell phone in my hand, I heard yet another piece of bad news. In a single afternoon, I learned that my body was falling apart. As if calling to give me the weather report, the latest person on the phone had informed me that I...
Saturday, July 21, 2018 | Reflections
Last week, for the first time since before the turn of the century (I’ve always wanted to say that), I left the state of Arizona to travel. It meant leaving my cats for four days, the longest I had ever been separated from them since their birth 11-1/2 years...
Friday, July 20, 2018 | Reflections
It’s not a stretch to take care of our friends when they fall on hard times. “Tell me what you need,” we say to the neighbor who’s recovering from surgery. “I’ll be happy to give you a ride,” we tell the colleague whose car broke down on the way to work. But...
Friday, July 20, 2018 | Reflections
Readings for the feast day of four pioneers of emancipation: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman, Friday, July 20, 2018: Psalm 146 Wisdom 7:24-28 1 Peter 4:10-11 Luke 11:5-10 Our first reading today is from the...
Thursday, July 19, 2018 | Reflections
One of my favorite statements by conservationist John Muir came from his defense of Hetch Hetchy Valley near Yosemite. “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”...
