We lament yet another shooting of an unarmed Black man, Jacob Blake, by law enforcement. One such shooting is one too many, and yet in our nation the numbers of such shootings continue. We join those who call for a complete and impartial investigation of this travesty. – The Rt. Rev. Steven A. Miller, bishop of the Diocese of Milwaukee
The pastors I spoke with just felt like they couldn’t do enough to counter the false messages that some of their church members were receiving through the Internet.
“Not only does Isaiah celebrate a foreign mission to spread the Word and gather all to God, but it suggests a way to maintain the liturgies and ceremonies of the people. In the case of Bartholomew, a way that he could go to India and establish a church, much as St. Paul did, by raising elders to bless and break the bread.”
“Gather around you kind, honest parishioners. And one effective spiritual director – older, wise women work best. They will keep you honest and humble. They will apply bandages when you fight incompetent authority – for you will be wounded in those fights. But you will also be blessed by the good, honest parishioners, clergy, and bishops whose goodness you will discern out of your spiritual disciplines and who will nurse you back to health.”
“God created us each to be the person we are — with talents and passions that need to be used. We are not what our family or culture dictates that we should be. Instead we have a unique purpose, whispered to us from the depths of our own hearts, where Christ dwells.”
“We often hear that we should sit quietly in prayer to God daily, not merely presenting our petitions, thanksgivings, or whatever, but simply sit with open minds, still hands and feet, and just listen for what God may wish to tell us. I remember the first time I tried centering prayer. The instructions were to sit quietly, without thinking of anything, and, should any thought appear, simply note that it appeared and then dismiss it and return to the empty mind again. It was hard because my mind was so used to taking control of silence, but gradually I found it got easier. I can’t say I can do that for long periods of time, but I know the more I practice it, I can increase the stillness of mind for longer and longer.”
In an interview recently published in Christianity Today, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and current Master of Magdalene College, Oxford, Rowan Williams, makes the case
“As I read today’s Genesis passage and realized I had actually been to the place about which tradition says Jacob was speaking, I was struck again by how important ritual and place are for the mourning process. Jacob makes a detailed request for his burial and, after he dies, his son Joseph takes his internal grief and expresses it externally.”
“Yet if we take seriously what Paul is saying here, we are assured that worship is not just bound up in rites, no matter how beautiful; or communal singing of praise songs, no matter how uplifting; or even in sermons, no matter how illuminating. Of course worship online can feel isolating, but it also can be a powerful tool of evangelism. So long as people of faith set their hearts and minds on living a life dedicated to following the Way of Jesus in the mundane moments of our lives, true worship can never be halted.”
“May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short, grace to do something big for something good, grace to remember that the world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”