“There’s a wearing-down effect… they’re thinking, ‘I’ve spent all these hours with people trying to do good things, and I’m just getting nowhere.’” – Bishop Chilton Knudsen
Ashes to Go has become a nationwide, indeed global, multi-denominational movement. Some examples, from The Episcopal Church.
“To get more of an understanding of why those who rail against equality and full inclusion of people of color, LGBTQ people, women, and foreign- born people in our society, I began to engage with some who are angry about the origins of that anger. Doing so was enlightening and engenders some sympathy for them in my own thinking.”
“We all fall. We all deny the Christ by word or deed or sheer carelessness. We are so human. We become afraid. But if we were not given the example of Peter, how would we learn? It was necessary for Peter to be afraid, to be human, to be flawed. And to ultimately receive Jesus’ forgiveness and mission to continue his teachings, to feed Jesus’ sheep, and build a Church, the Body of Christ.”
“There is a vast wealth of understanding we can take away from this Transfiguration story, enough that each time we engage with it, we will learn and grow. Today what I am hearing is that whatever I want to do, wherever I want to go, I ought to turn my attention to how God has engineered the experience as an opportunity to be known to me.”
Luci and Jordan look into the life and legacy of the African martyr Crispina
In this episode we look at 2 Peter’s call to be attentive to God’s action in the world “as to a lamp shining in a dark place”
“In the Gospel of John, the writer often made things a bit more abstract or mysterious than the simple straightforwardness of the other three. His use of “sleeping” to the disciples meant that Lazarus was in the sleep of death and that Jesus’ delay in going to his friend was to teach them a lesson about belief. Jesus knew that the time was coming when they would have to remember the experience of Lazarus.”
“Good news, bad news, a cross country move, a death in the family, a new baby, a sudden accident or illness, a change of identity from student to worker, from employed to unemployed, from single to married or vice versa – any one of these things, and so many more – can leave us feeling like Jacob, caught in a profound and unexpected struggle through the long, quiet hours of the night.”
“In this Sunday’s gospel reading, we see one of the most astounding perception-shifting passages in the Bible, and that is saying something. Jesus has been hinting to the disciples that he is more than what he seems to be, but they don’t get it. And let’s be fair—why should they? There certainly hasn’t been anyone like Jesus before.”