Julia McCray-Goldsmith, Author at LiftUpYourHearts

Deep Hunger & True Treasure

There’s a book about Jesuit prayer practice—a personal favorite—called “Sleeping with Bread.” It takes its title from a WWII era story, when thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But still, many of these children could … Read the rest

Loving the Questions

Proper 13B

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live … Read the rest

Not Dead Yet

Matthew 9:18-26 TalithaKum

I might characterize the Gospel lesson we just heard as a tale of two daughters. One of them the well-loved daughter of a Jewish leader, who was so committed to her wellbeing that he was willing to publically humble himself before an itinerant healer of somewhat dubious credentials. The other un-named woman was an evident outcast. We have … Read the rest

Unexceptional Grace

Proper 9B

“I know a person… who was caught up into Paradise,” Paul wrote to the church in Corinth nearly two thousand years ago. “Even considering the exceptional character of the revelations, however, I refrain from boasting.”

This passage is one of my favorites in all of Paul’s voluminous and dense correspondence to the early church, in large part because … Read the rest

Slaying the Giant Among Us

Proper 7B

Last week I was in northern Michigan visiting an old friend who lives in Leelanau County, which is at the tip of a peninsula extending into Lake Michigan alongside Grand Traverse Bay. Its really beautiful country, and among its many charmsare miles of sandy beaches where amateur geologists search out a kind of fossilized corral known as petosky … Read the rest

Think About These Things. Really.

Jeremiah 1:4-9
Psalm 84
Philippians 4:4-9
Matt. 9:35-38

And so, deacons and priests in waiting, the day has come. The day you dreamed of, worked hard for, maybe ran even harder from; the day you worried about and rejoiced in. In a few Spirit-filled minutes you will take vows that nobody can possibly fulfill but for the grace of our … Read the rest

Telling the Truthiness

Acts 16:16-34

Did you know that “truthiness” was Merriam Webster’s “word of the year” for 2006? Various Internet sources define “truthiness” as an argument or assertion that claims to be true, without regard to evidence. Faux newscaster Stephen Colbert coined the word in the pilot episode of his political satire The Colbert Report, and the truth became—well—history.

Which leads me … Read the rest

Wild Child, Welcome!

Grace Cathedral Choral Evensong

Mark 4:35-41 Jonah 2

st_dots I bring you greetings on behalf of Bishop Marc Andrus. And together with him, I give thanks for the 100-plus year ministry of St. Dorothy’s Rest. My thanks are professional—I have the pleasure of working with Katie Evenbeck and her outstanding team—and also personal. Let me start with the latter. I … Read the rest

Ostentatio Vulnerum

Easter 2B

incredulity-of-saint-thomas-1602 The other day I was cleaning out my wallet and I found a Band-Aid. Which mostly tells you that I don’t clean out my wallet very often. It had probably been there for ten years, which is about the last time when I was in the business of regularly patching up my children’s abrasions. But finding it brought … Read the rest

Touch, Eat, Tell

Luke 24:36-48

Hand holding a heart Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2007 bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love, is a kind of spiritual travelogue. If you read it or watched the movie, you may recall that she recovers from a messy divorce by traveling to Italy to eat, then to India to pray, and finally to Bali to fall in love. It’s a kind of chick-lit classic, … Read the rest