Am I losing my mind?
That’s what my friend Lisa asked recently. Now there’s no shortage of reasons why followers of Jesus might ask that question at this time of year. Mary Magdalene and Mary, were you losing your minds when you snuck off to see the tomb of one so shamefully executed? Or when an angel sent … Read the rest
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I don’t know about you, but I am ready for some light. You know the kind I mean: that shimmery spring sunlight that makes the burgeoning cherry blossoms and rhododendrons and trilliums glow, absent the relentless shadow of rainclouds. And then there’s the problem of mud. Even though Nathan preached last week that “giving up the need to be right … Read the rest
I came home from my Bay Area sojourn longing for home. It’s the conundrum of an itinerant preacher, which seems to be my identity these days. Like every embodied being, I long for place, for people, for a sense of belonging somewhere. Because I trust the Episcopal Church processes by which I was called to Trinity Cathedral, I know … Read the rest
My iPhone screen is cracked. And people notice, y’know? Its kind of an outward and visible sign of some kind of inward shortcoming: clumsiness, inability to pay for a replacement, not caring. I plead guilty to the first, sorta to the second (it’s the second time I’ve broken the screen in a month and this is adding up) and no … Read the rest
This morning I chanced to hear a fragment of radio advertising from a room at the far end of the house. The phrase caught my attention “Black Fridays in March.” I guess that’s a thing, extending the curse and chaos of post-Thanksgiving sales to the rest of the year. But seriously? Friday sales during Lent?
I haven’t yet decided how … Read the rest
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The two post-crash carless days that made up the majority of my Bay Area sojourn meant that I spent time—lots of time—on public transportation. It takes well over an hour to get from Oakland to the San Francisco campus of the UCSF hospital, and since I hadn’t really planned for passenger-hood by bringing extra reading material, I used the travel … Read the rest
While my own Christian community was enacting ancient rituals of mortality, I was in another state attending to a hospitalized parent, and having conversations about his end of life wishes. No worries: dad is fine right now. But there’s nothing quite like brain surgery to remind a person of the finitude of human existence. So I suppose it would have … Read the rest
I was struck by another vehicle today as I was parking my car in San Francisco. Although nobody was hurt, it was a frightening and costly experience, the latter in both financial and relational terms. I had been on my way to visit the hospital where my father at that very moment in surgery, and after the impact I spent … Read the rest
Some of you may know that one of the great privileges of my first year of service at Trinity is to shepherd our Catechesis class, which is a 20-week long immersion in the Christian and Episcopal traditions. And this past Wednesday and the coming one, we’re studying Holy Scripture: the Old and New Testaments. From a teacher’s perspective, … Read the rest
Continue reading "With Charity for All" »Epiphany 1A/Baptism of Our Lord
Last Sunday on the Feast of the Holy Name, my colleague Marlene preached about the importance of letting go of names that no longer suit us. So in the three months since I’ve moved here from the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve been practicing a new way of naming myself: Oregonian. I’m actually the fourth … Read the rest
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