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 […]

Many of you remember Judge Roy Moore’s Ten Commandment monument that he placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Justice building in July of 2001.  Prior to his term as an Alabama Supreme Court Justice, Moore had served as a circuit court judge where he displayed a wooden plaque with the Ten Commandments behind his […]

What does it mean to be blessed and what might it mean to be cursed? We spend a lot of time counting our blessings but rarely do we consider that which might curse us. And that makes sense—who wants to think about being cursed in any way? We might lament after a string of bad […]