Writings and Sermons
My first Sunday at my current Church I stood in front of the congregation before the service began introducing myself, asking for patience as I learn what they do, then I took a big breath and said,“You need to know something about how I celebrate a service. Anglican worship is full of movement. We sit, […]
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Every 3 years the Church reads Proverbs 31, which is a beautiful and misused passage. Three years ago, I spent time talking with parishioners about how this passage, used as a hymn of praise from a Jewish husband to his wife, would sound if we reworked it to be a song from Christ to his […]
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Today my Church celebrated with Christmas Lessons and Carols. Because that was the right choice for my energy and, in my opinion, a fun way to continue to celebrate Christmas with all the carols we love. (It also gives me a bit of a break from preaching, which is especially welcome after Christmas.) Every year […]
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Falling apart is human. The most important thing I learned my senior year of university was that I could fall apart. I was the over-achieving, still remember all the classes I didn’t get an A in in high school, early-to-rise-late-to-bed, whether because I’m an oldest child or as a coping mechanism after my mother’s […]
Read MoreReflecting on predators in the Church This week was the third time. The other day I was talking with local clergy colleagues about how society has made safety into an idol. We discussed how the Gospel calls us to make sacrifices and take risks. That our lives, even apart from the Gospel, can never be […]
Read MoreWhen I worked at camp, you could quickly tell the returning staff from the new staff each summer by how our boss’s wife’s requests were responded to. New staff were often confused and uncertain of what to do when this smart and assertive woman who was not part of the staff made a request or […]
Read MoreThe blessing oil drips off my hands, running onto the page as I write, and Scripture’s lines about oil dripping off of Aaron’s beard run through my head. I remember how I remind others that anointing with oil was a kingly act, that our baptism anointing ties us to the apostles, prophets, priests, and […]
Read MoreThere is a balm in Galilee. Or at least that’s what I’m looking and hoping for, a balm in Galilee. The better known Balm of Gilead is only mentioned a few times in scripture and always as something with extraordinary healing properties, rare, and valuable. The idea was later adopted and incorporated into an African […]
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago the audio of my sermon got lost due to a tech mishap. Because I had most of a manuscript and thought it was a good sermon on a hard passage, I committed to (re)creating a written version of the sermon. The text I preached is Mark 10: 2-16 and can be […]
Read MoreLast year I got captivated by Josh Ritter’s “A Girl in the War” which influence my sermon. After preaching at both services, I realized that it really had been a poem. Over the course of the year, I’ve come back to my notes from the week and from re-listening to the sermon. Here’s what that […]
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Theologybird Writes 