It seems an odd day for us to be drawn to the church.  The altar has been stripped, the crosses veiled..  Though we will receive reserved sacrament, we will not celebrate a Eucharist today—we will not celebrate anything.  Jesus is dead. Do we come because we are drawn into suffering—bystanders rubber necking their way through […]

I have always been fascinated by church architecture.  I remember when I was a little girl and our Sunday school teacher took us into the church and had us run around the space with one hand on the wall, tracing the shape of the church.  When we finished she gathered us in the middle of […]

There is a sensuous aspect to our liturgy that incorporates all of our senses—taste, sight, touch, hearing, even smell.  To worship in the Episcopal Church is a full body experience—we stand, sit, and kneel even move around to offer one another the peace and come forward for the sacrament.  We juggle books, shake hands, drink […]

Psalm 32 You are my hiding-place; you preserve me from trouble; * you surround me with shouts of deliverance. The Vietnam War was in full swing when my father was in college.  He played baseball for Maryland but was restless and felt he should do something of greater purpose with his life.  Most of the […]

My neighbors have a row of fig trees in their yard right next to the road.  Every summer when I walk by, I notice a sign in the yard that says, “Free figs, you pick.”  Their fig trees are typically laden with the fruit and when picked at the right time, it is sweet and […]

The crack of lightning was terrifying and the accompanying boom of thunder left everything still and silent in its wake–it was as if the entire forest was afraid to move.  The silence didn’t last for more than a few seconds when the creatures who lived there resumed their scurrying to find shelter from the rain—the […]

I’m not sure we do a good job of remembering anymore—we might share the stories of a generation or two, but few of us continue to share the stories of how our ancestors came to be in this country and the challenges and joys they may have known. Instead, we are much more likely to […]

A couple of years ago, I read the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo. The advice throughout the book was not only practical, but inspiring—and I don’t mean simply that kind of inspiring that makes you want to go clean your house, it was partly that but also soul-inspiring. Just reading the book […]