A few years back, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the 40th anniversary celebration of the ordination of a good friend and colleague of mine. It was a glorious celebration that started with an extravagant worship service with golden vestments, soaring choral music, and a sea of participants—parishioners and colleagues new and old who …
Every time my phone rings, I answer it with suspicion—unsure if it will be a church member or the veterinary office calling me, or if it will be yet another scam call. Normally, it is easy to tell the two apart. But sometimes, sometimes I’m not sure. Like many of you, I’m sure, I get …
This time last year, I was slowly sorting through an impenetrable wall of boxes as I unpacked our belongings from the move. I knew that in one of those boxes, somewhere, were our Christmas decorations. But I could not find them. More to the point, even if I had found them, I had nowhere to …
“Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” It was …
In the beginning, when God had created the heavens and the earth, God looked at all that was created, and saw that it was good. The birds in the air flocked together as they flew, the fishes in the sea swam in great schools through the clear waters, the four-legged creatures of the land roamed …
Back when my husband, Matt, was first starting at his previous church, he introduced a new practice in worship. At the passing of the peace, rather than launching directly into greeting one another, the worship leader would first say, “The Peace of the Lord be always with you,” and the congregation would respond, “And also …
There are many reasons that we welcome people. Sometimes it is simply to be polite. I think that we have all done this before—we run into someone new, someone we don’t know, and we exchange pleasantries with them. “Good morning, how are you?” They respond with some variant of “I’m fine.” This exchange continues until …
I had been living in Connecticut for about a year when I went out to meet some friends for dinner at a pub-like restaurant, the kind that has a sizeable and busy bar in it. Which is where we stood, next to one of the patrons of the bar, while waiting for a table to …
The problem with geography is that I don’t think we humans are very good at it. It’s just that we never think big enough. Personally, I blame cars. Cars make travel too easy, they make distance trivial, they make our world feel like a small place. If you have ever tried to walk somewhere, or …