We forget how sharp the pain of grief is until we suffer a beloved’s death again.
Sorrow so deep we are certain we can’t sustain it and survive. We can’t breathe, or eat or sleep. Our bodies curl upon themselves, teeth clench, lungs and limbs quiver when we try to move. We can’t speak or listen or think. We sometimes feel we want to go down to the grave with our loved one.
David and Charlette discuss the story of Jesus’ conversation with the Syrophoenician woman and subsequent healing of the deaf man in the Decapolis
How do you retire from being a priest and can you actually do that?
Introducing a new podcast to our lineup, Tea Time Theology is produced by the Diocese of Rhode Island that aims to create space to have real and meaningful conversations about faith
We share our holiday traditions (or lack thereof) and Jon wishes he had taken Latin before we begin our conversation on the BCP catechism’s take on the nature of ministry
Last week during our spiritual direction supervision meeting, one of my colleagues read a confession. She talked about feeling totally listless, gray. About how she cannot force herself to pray, how her exercise program has gone out the window and she finds herself turning on the TV too often, watching too much “news” and other empty programming. At several points as I listened I found myself silently affirming, “I do that, too.”
The story of Jesus going through the cornfield reminded me of September, even though I’m a few miles from the nearest cornfield, which will soon be a Halloween maze. Corn is always a welcome food, boiled, grilled, creamed, or used in succotash or cottage pie. It’s best when it’s fresh, and people in the store rummage through the bins of unshucked corn, checking for readiness. The disciples must have found ripe corn or even corn beginning to dry on the stalk because they rubbed the ears in their hands to loosen the corn for eating.
The expanded scope of the Provincial review has led to the Rt. Rev. Todd Atkinson taking a leave of absence amidst allegations of misconduct. Atkinson leads the Via Apostolica group of churches which recently joined the Anglican Church in North America.
Former members said church leaders pressured them to stay in abusive relationships, subjected them to conversion therapy and denied them leadership positions for voicing criticism. They describe a culture of censorship and controlling behavior, all packaged in overtly spiritual language.
This woman is an outsider on three important levels. First, she is a woman, approaching a strange man whom she does not know. Second, she is a Gentile, of Phoenician and Syrian heritage. Third, the inhabitants of the region of Tyre were typically prosperous, as it was a busy trading hub with a highly lucrative economy as compared to the poorer agricultural area from which Jesus came around Galilee, and so its inhabitants were often looked upon with resentment by their neighbors.
“SB 8 could very well violate our First Amendment rights, because if it is restricting … the ability of clergy or religious individuals — a congregation — to provide that kind of counseling, which is fundamental to their faith, then that violates their religious freedom,” an ACLU spokesperson said.