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Wild Child, Welcome!

Grace Cathedral Choral Evensong

Mark 4:35-41  Jonah 2

st_dotsI 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

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Ostentatio Vulnerum

Easter 2B

incredulity-of-saint-thomas-1602The 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

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Touch, Eat, Tell

Luke 24:36-48

Hand holding a heartElizabeth 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

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The Look of Love

John 18:1-19:42

lookingWith fear and trembling a preacher would add any words to this passion play, which is our story of stories, and which continues to tell itself wherever love meets the lust for power and control.

So rather than adding my own words to this narrative—or adding very many of them, anyway— I want to ask you to see … Read the rest

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Riding into Turmoil

Matthew 21:1-11

hosannaI don’t know about you, but I really struggle to imagine how Jesus could ride into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt. It might be a first world problem: I drive a car and I don’t have much experience riding animals, so that makes it especially hard for me to envision what it would be like … Read the rest

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Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Lent 4B

“Let’s consider your age to begin with—impossible before breakfasthow old are you?’

’ I’m seven and a half exactly.’

’You needn’t say “exactually,”‘ the Queen remarked: ‘I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give YOU something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.’

’I can’t believe THAT!’ said Alice.

 ‘Can’t you?’ the … Read the rest

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James & John Call Shotgun

When my two sons were young and we’d travel anywhere by car, they’d race to the driver’s side door calling “shotgun” at the top of their lungs. Honestly, I’m not really sure what the value of sitting in that front seat was. Because actually when they got a little older—and especially when their friends were in the car—nobody wanted to … Read the rest

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Become What You Are

“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the 
observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-deniaCute-Sheepl; and by reading and
meditating on God’s holy Word.” Did y’all happen to hear that exhortation on Ash Wednesday last week? How’s all the prayer, fasting and self-denial going for you?

On the … Read the rest

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The Bewildering Word

listenEpiphany 2B

One of the privileges of serving our diocesan community in the area of Christian formation—which is my day job—is that I get to work with a lot of young people who are really passionate about faith. They constantly inspire me to imagine and to work for a the kingdom of God. But I pray for them continually, because … Read the rest

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Saying Yes and Saying No

yesnoMatthew 21:28-32

“What do you think?” Jesus asked the chief priests and elders. Well, what do YOU think about the behavior of these two sons? Is it better to be a hypocrite or a nay-sayer?

Spoiler alert: this parable was kind of a trap for the temple authorities, because Jesus was using it to reveal their own hypocrisy. They gave … Read the rest

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