In the small Florida community where I grew up, there was a palatial and historically prominent mansion called the Porcher House. It was mostly abandoned when I was a teen and is now a wedding and events
“In the theatre of public shaming, the woman ‘ups the ante’ by coming and kneeling before Jesus. This isn’t someone who honours God with their lips but whose heart is far from God; she worships Him with ‘heart, soul and mind’ and in so doing detonates a theological bombshell.”
“The “less” I become, the “more” I become. The less I focus on protecting, puffing up, or advancing my small self—my egoic self made of my character defects and deluded into thinking it is actually separate from other selves—the more I identify with, participate in, and expand into, other persons and other modes of being. The more I “lose my life” the more I “find” it, in greater form.”
“The Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) is recruiting an experienced volunteer that is deeply committed to the mission of EPF. This person will play a significant role in leading the organization’s sustainability initiatives.”
“This is certainly not the priesthood that I sought. I really do like the outfits. But it is the priesthood to which I am currently called. Just because this time is lousy in many ways, doesn’t mean that I am not responsible for the care and support of my people. And so we Zoom church. And we bless cars. And we have logistically difficult, candlelit, masked, graveside visits. And we baptize outside. And we empty our outreach coffers to support the food pantries in our area. And we thank God for the blessings of this life, even as we watch too much news and pray for the sick and those who tend them. Apparently, we can’t help but be the church right now. Thanks be to God.”
“There are times when I am standing on God’s shoulders or he is sitting on mine and I am unaware. These stories are worth retelling.”
“For me, ballpark church represents a mustard seed planted to nurture a return to communal worship, a reminder that now, more than ever, I can and must find God in the most unexpected places.”
“What was exciting about this? It was exciting to find ways that we could make the same meaning present in language that didn’t leave people on the outside of it. So finding new ways to have that same emotional content of the words be present, but in words that when they wrote the book of common prayer they never thought of using.”
“At a time in which many in TEC may face financial pressures, I wish to alert the Church to the presence and actions of ultra right-wing extremist Christian groups, who may want to rent or buy your properties.”
Each morning as my wife and I brushed our teeth, washed our faces, and fixed our hair, our minds already beginning to spin around the challenges and chances of the day, we were addressed by a small brick-red sticker taped to our bathroom mirror. In bold white letters the sticker affirmed, “You are looking at the only problem you’ll have today.”