“As all parents and regular babysitters of toddlers know, no son of Thetis ever ran faster than a toddler intent on eluding capture, and this one was no exception. He streaked down the aisle like Usain Bolt setting a new world record for the 100-metre sprint, legs flashing in the light from the stained-glass windows.”
“Fasting from this sacrament, I wonder if there is anything in this time of social distancing that could possibly be as powerful in linking me with my fellow parishioners as the sacrament of Eucharist is. Would there be anything even half as powerful?”
“Some bishops and priests have called this time in the life of our church, “a fast.” A fast is a chosen spiritual discipline. What if, instead of feeling that losing the Eucharist is something just happening to us, we choose this as a fast, out of love for God and our neighbor?”
“But other impossible things have happened too. Miraculous things. Signs of life overcoming old ways of death. The people who pick and pack and truck our food are understood to be essential. People are giving away their stimulus checks to make sure the unemployed can eat. San Francisco has found housing for homeless people in the newly empty hotels. Jails are setting people free. Grocery stores have special hours for elders and people wait patiently in line. More of us are baking bread and planting seeds, transforming our relationships with our bodies and the earth. Neighbors are connecting, in many places for the first time.”
“When the Hebrew people were dispersed after the Babylonian Captivity, they missed the Temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. The psalmist of Psalm 137 said that they did not know how to praise God with their songs if they were dispersed from their community of faith. Perhaps in these days, we feel dispersed as well from our communities of faith as we are quarantined.”
“The idea of caring for the earth and its resources is a concept far older than Earth Day and goes back to the earliest chapters of the Bible. Earth and all stars were created by God and given to us to care for and nurture so that it might provide for us abundantly.”
Jesus in Our Suffering. Guest Karen Ray Nelson joins to talk about the implications of this week’s gospel reading
Faith leaders, Episcopal and otherwise, have been far less enthusiastic this week about the prospects of returning to business as usual. That has been especially
“Almost half my week is still spent being an ‘essential worker.’ Yet at the same time, between our diocese temporarily closing our churches, and the very sobering realization that I’m the one most likely to infect our food ministry workers on Sundays, I’ve been in many ways ‘cut off from my congregation.'”
“Yesterday was Earth Day, centered within what some of us call “Earth Week.” I am lucky to be on retreat right now, listening to bird song and woodpecker drumming and wind. Gratitude for this moment and the greening trees draws my heart closer to God to see wonders in the smallest budding leaf.”