“You might tell me that this vision is idealistic. It glosses over the petty side of church life. For instance, there are always going to be competitions and struggles. People will always seek power. They’ll have precious rituals or items that they feel they absolutely must protect.”
“Perhaps most of all, and I’ve been pondering this as well, God lives in the narrow space between you and me, even more so than abstractly within any one of us. I cannot, after all, contain God, nor is that what it means when I say, God lives, right here. That God lives here, and no place else.”
“Wait–He still wants to come?
I’m not sure it will make a difference.
They will probably chide me even more now
and sit in their circles over wine and dinner
and debate the particulars
of whether I let an unclean man in my house,
but I no longer care.”
“As you multiplied the loaves and fishes
to feed the multitudes,
feed us with your grace and peace,
satisfying our souls.”
“There I sat, opening, emptying, and resting. In that 30-minute ferry ride and while fully awake, I felt as though I had a deep, soul-cleansing nap.”
“Open my eyes, Lord, to your goodness.
I want to see love between neighbors
kindness to strangers
forgiveness after wrongdoing…”
More details are emerging surrounding alleged mishandling of the case of alleged abuse in ACNA’s Diocese of the Upper Midwest.
“Being with my mother after her surgery encouraged me to reflect on my own beliefs and write my own personal creed. It provides a statement that I can return to whenever I feel insecure in my faith. It’s a little like a calling statement but with a little more detail about what I believe rather than what I want to do with my live.”
The prayer is among a new generation of spiritual tools specifically designed for the horror of mass shootings. Written by an Episcopal priest for the bishops, it was constructed with the cruel assumption of its growth, with additional shootings that result in more than four deaths continually added at the end. The litany now takes more than 12 minutes to pray.
“So begins the Plague Quilt. Measure, cut, feed squares and strips through the sewing machine. My mind busy, less busy, quieter, quiet. Examining a wonky corner of a 9-patch quilt square the thought occurs: this pandemic has revealed all the wonky corners of our world, our country, our lives, and relationships; where are my wonky corners?”