Do you remember the first time you ever addressed a group of people, whether it was your first sermon or your first public speaking class or your first time lay reading? It’s sort of like that, at least as I experienced it. Signing my name to a post about faith created anxious tension. Even though I wasn’t hiding my identity per se, it scared me.
Jim was making spaghetti sauce. This a production number at our house, involving his homegrown tomatoes, onions, herbs, etc. He puts on an Italian opera with a tenor. Suddenly he looks up from stirring the sauce and says, “It just came to me – you better go to seminary and you better go soon or you will be dead before you get ordained.”
I hate wearing nametags. Maybe that’s why I’m always attracted to the unnamed people in Scripture, like the anonymous woman who washes Jesus’ feet in Mark’s version of the story, or the unnamed young man who runs away naked to avoid being captured by the police who are arresting Jesus in the garden. I think of St. Bartholomew as part of their company. His name, roughly translated just means “son of Tolmai.” No real claim to fame there, nothing really to put on a nametag.
The wedding itself isn’t what matters; it’s the marriage that comes after that does. But we’ve got practice, now. We’re comfortable. We influence each other. Invisibly. We finish each other’s sentences, and we have a reasonable shot at having 50 years together.
Is time really “unredeemable,” as the poet, TS Eliot, appears to suggest? Is the past – our lives, relationships, decisions – lost to us forever? Only in the sense that these things have a fixed and unchanging identity, or only if we allow ourselves to be trapped in them.
Hi my name is Missy and I am an Episcopal Nerd. There I said it. They say that admitting that you have a problem is the first step, and although I am admitting it, I am not entirely sure that it is a problem at all. I probably cannot be taken to dinner parties where the rules are “don’t talk about religion or politics” as one of my favorite topics is religion and I love a good religious political debate.
It’s not easy to learn to fly, to step off the nest, to risk falling or failing. The project seems to require a lot of screaming. The fledglings make a lot of noise, but it doesn’t bring back their parents. The days of mom and dad feeding and tending and guarding are over. The birds are on their own, for good or for ill.
Learning to play the cello as an adult can be an isolating and lonely business. The noise we make can be excruciating—no wonder we tend to keep our doors closed. And yet coming together for a week, we gave ourselves permission to break out of our lonely practice rooms, to play in trios, duets, and even in a full-voiced choir of 48 instruments, strains of Beethoven and Vivaldi echoing off the walls.
As I have observed these camps over many years, I have developed a special appreciation for the cabin counselors. Living with a cabin of kids 24/7 for several months is not something everyone is called to do. I simply cannot comprehend how they maintain their energy, enthusiasm and patience. Counselors are the heart of camps. In virtuous cycle, the camps attract counselors who are committed to working with kids and staying on message – building up the body of Christ.
It is entirely unprofessional to bring a pet to work. And because they spend so much time in a work environment, many folks come into our church office expecting a certain amount of decorum and propriety. They expect the priests here to be wearing suits. They expect this to be a Well-Run Office. And, my friends, that is fairly contrary to what I understand the Church to be.