Tuesday, June 19, 2018 | Reflections
As the birds sing their morning song and the world awakes, I go to the garden to water. Before the day has officially begun, I go to the garden to pray. Before all the other tasks of cleaning and cooking, I go to the garden to be still. For this water, Lord, I give...
Monday, June 18, 2018 | Reflections
I’ve heard the phrase, “Just have faith,” used in situations from finding a good parking place to overcoming a grave illness. “Just have faith” and things will turn out in your favor. In this calculation, it is as if faith is the missing variable in the equation of...
Monday, June 18, 2018 | Reflections
Monday, Proper 6 Looking through the Gospel readings for this week, I stopped at the one for tomorrow, Matthew 17:22-27. First there were the cold words predicting the death and rising again of the Son of Man, and it caught my breath as if I had never heard them...
Monday, June 18, 2018 | Reflections
The post God is Enough for the Storm appeared first on d365 Daily Devotionals. This post appeared here first: God is Enough for the Storm [D365 Daily Devotions]
Sunday, June 17, 2018 | Reflections
by Linda McMillan Sometimes things are not the way we think they are going to be. They may be much better or much worse, or just much different, but it’s not like what we imagined. I suspect it was this way for Jesus’ disciples too. They thought the...
Sunday, June 17, 2018 | Reflections
Every Sunday afternoon, I retreat to my favorite chair and read the New York Times, complete with an entire page of puzzles—including the infamous crossword. I start tinkering with it right away and come back to the puzzle for a few minutes each day for the next week....
Saturday, June 16, 2018 | Reflections
Matthew 5:33-37 I have always liked the book of Matthew. It is one of the synoptic Gospels, sharing similarities with both Mark and Luke, yet with some differences. Matthew and Luke both seem to have copied bits of Mark but put in different emphases and...
Saturday, June 16, 2018 | Reflections
Whenever I read about the Apostle Peter, I hear my grandmother’s voice in my head saying, “Bless his heart!” I often wonder if I’m much different from Peter. Peter wants to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus, where things are calm and safe and where nobody is...
Friday, June 15, 2018 | Reflections
There is a lot to work with in the readings for Friday in the season of Pentecost, Proper 5. Not the least because it is interesting to look at the difference and similarities in translation between the Book of Common Prayer and Robert Alter’s The Book of...
Friday, June 15, 2018 | Reflections
As a culture, we place an enormous amount of emphasis on self-reliance and personal accountability. Helping someone is all well and good until it affects our bottom line. “I made it all on my own,” we say, “and you should too.” It is little wonder we are so...
Thursday, June 14, 2018 | Reflections
For the better part of a decade, I’ve made an annual retreat to a convent in southern Ohio. It is a time of deep spiritual rest and refreshment—and a lot of prayer! Each day, shortly before dawn the community gathers for Lauds, followed by Morning Prayer and...
Thursday, June 14, 2018 | Reflections
The Feast Day of St. Basil the Great It is the Feast Day of St. Basil the Great, which happens to be the day upon which, twenty-one years ago and ten years into our relationship, Rosean and I vowed our commitment to one another before witnesses, the day upon...
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 | Reflections
Mark 4:26-34 The moth went flying around my house yesterday as if he owned the joint. According to my daughter, the moth was the size of a jumbo-jet, a monster out of a Japanese horror movie. To my eyes, this was a tiny brown interloper—harmless. Much...
Wednesday, June 13, 2018 | Reflections
A small church on the outskirts of the diocese was in distress. The priest reached out to the bishop for help, and the bishop agreed to meet with the church leadership. When the priest informed the leadership that the bishop would be visiting, one angry parishioner...
Tuesday, June 12, 2018 | Reflections
New to the church? Casserole. New neighbors? Carrot cake. New baby? Potato soup. Funeral? Fried chicken. For many of us, food is a kind of sacrament—an outward and visible sign of grace and hospitality, a way to express our love and care. Food means a lot in Jesus’...
