“Elizabeth Kübler-Ross observed that stained-glass windows are beautiful when the sunlight hits them. The light goes from outside in, splashing the interior with patches of color. At night, though, if the building is lit inside, the stained glass glows visible, warm, and welcoming. That is the kind of light Jesus wants us to present, just as he did through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection.”
“I do not have any special insight into how this all can be fixed, but I do know that we must mourn the loss of our international political standing, the power that we were so accustomed to when dealing with both partners and adversaries, and the pride we held in being an example for other nations to follow.”
“When the Word became flesh,
it was the women
who knew what expectation meant—
the circle begins as it ends
in the witness of women.”
“Call it healing; call it cleansing; call it conversion, call it transformation, call it what you want. It was the moment where I knew that I was no longer the person that I used to be and going back to that person was no longer an option.”
The most difficult visits for me occur in Labor and Delivery and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the hospital. These visits drain me emotionally and I am continually amazed by the heroic teams of professionals called to work in these units day after day. Labor and Delivery and the Neonatal units are for the most part the happiest areas of the hospital full of new lives, but at other times, they are the saddest units in the hospital. The sadness and intense grief seem to fill the hallways and enter the hearts of all associated with the death of a baby.
As the days advance to the arrival of any baby, there is both joy and trepidation, a new blessed being, emerging from labor, and love. So with Advent, awaiting the Birth that marks another beginning for the world.
It is mortal pain that brings forth the Christ child from Mary’s body. His mortal life begun as any babe’s, wrenched away from the warm ocean of the womb to the cold air of earthly life. The Child lifted from the Mother, a sign that this most precious Life will end in being lifted on the Cross, and lifting us up, with Him, to the hope of heaven.
David and Charlette discuss the story of John’s exhortations in the wilderness
We begin our look at the sacramental rites in the BCP.
A conversation about Pop Culture in the year 2021
By popular request from our Quaker audience, we talk Public Universal Friend, with special guest Kaya Oakes!