Singing Along the Journey

Advent

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More

Patiently…Advent 2013 Day 18

One of my favorite pieces of music for this season is a work by Camille Saint-Saens called the Oratorio de Noel.  I was lucky enough to perform it a couple of times; it doesn't get nearly as much performance as Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, probably because it is in truth most suited to the kind of worship experience you have at a candlelit midnight service.  It is a piece of music that beautifully captures the sense of peace that we would all like to feel at that moment when we meet the Christ for the very first time, over and over again. In this work, I get to…
Read More

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened…Advent 2013 Day 16

Those are the words I am most familiar with from our passage today because with any luck I have an opportunity or two to sing them each holiday season.  Because of that, I tend to think of them as a stand-alone prophecy, but they are not.  They are part of a long litany of transformation through faith: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty…
Read More

One more to go…Advent 2013 Day 15

Sometimes, when you set a challenge for yourself like my Advent writing challenge, you have days, well, when you just don't have anything to say...but then you have to write something anyway. Today is the third day of Advent and in my community, this is the day we light the candle of Joy.  I will freely admit that I am feeling no joy right now.  I am living with the emotional after effects of serious heart surgery.  Add to that a bought of seasonal Grinch-ness and the need to finish a paper from a class that I finished before the surgery, and well, I would say that today I am…
Read More

Great Cloud of Witnesses…Advent Version

I've said it before:  I am a person who loves tradition.  And no time of year is so loaded with cultural and faith traditions than this holiday season at the end of the calendar year, traditions like the singing of Handel's Messiah and the lighting of the Advent wreath candles (although many of these "traditions" are not so timeless as the marketing geniuses would have us believe -- Thanksgiving dating from the Roosevelt administration and our current vision of Santa Clause coming from a Coca-Cola advertisement in the 1930's). You can read our passage for today in that mindset -- that of honoring tradition, honoring the "great cloud of witnesses".…
Read More

I Will, with God’s Help…an Advent Baptism

Friday the 13th.  The 13th day of Advent.  And the 4th anniversary of my baptism into the community of the Calvary Baptist Church and what appears to be a totally new direction in life (or is just an awareness of a direction that was always there, but unseen?). There will be a lot of the prophet Isaiah in my life today, so it seems fitting that the reading on our advent calendar should also come from the words of that prophet: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?…
Read More

Praise, praise and more praise…Advent 2013 Day 17

I'm sitting here at my computer, letting the past few days unwind and thinking what a long road I've traveled to get to this moment, the end of a semester interrupted by surgery and recovery and changes of all kind.  But I made it...and maybe I can get back to something a little more normal...at least for me. And so I think it is right and fit that I should end this day with our reading -- Psalm 8, the very first hymn of praise in the Book of Psalms: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the…
Read More

Waiting…or not…

Perhaps it is the simple fact that I have spent much of the second half of the year 2013 in some sort of state of waiting or expectancy -- what is wrong, is the diagnosis correct, should I get the surgery, waiting for the surgery, having the surgery, waiting through recovery -- but I just cannot find that waiting and watching spirit that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Advent season. So today, I'm not going to engage with text from the Lectionary cycle; I'm not going to tackle a text from that lovely Advent calendar I have been using -- today I am not going to engage…
Read More

Old women and virgins…changing the world, one life at a time

We've heard the angel Gabriel speak already -- Gabriel told the news of the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Now, six months later, we meet Mary as Gabriel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, the "Son of the Most High": In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered…
Read More

God with us…

On this tenth day of our journey through Advent, we return to the book of Psalms and read together Psalm 46. Like so many of the Psalms, this one contains one of those phrases that speaks to us down the ages, particularly when we think about our relationship with God..."be still, and know that I am God": God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make…
Read More

Who are you?

One evening in Church History class the lecture began with this question:  who are you?  It was a good opening; it made me start, it made me pay attention.  It was not the words I expected in that place at that time.  And it was a great question with which to frame the discussion of the early Christian persecutions that followed.  I did not at that time realize the ways in which that question would echo forward through my life.   I certainly did not then nor do I now have as clear an answer as our Gospel reports that John the Baptist offered when asked the same question: This…
Read More