Singing Along the Journey

John the Baptist

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…
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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…
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Testifying to the light

Today is the second Sunday of Advent when we light the candle of peace in my faith community, and I am sitting at my desk, looking out the window, watching the few snow flakes that came disappear and change to freezing rain. What we meditate upon each week in Advent is not set by some great rule book; different communities follow different patterns and in my church family it happens to be Hope, Peace, Joy, Love.  Other churches follow other rituals:  for the Methodists, the Sundays represent expectation, hope, joy, and purity; sometimes it is promise, light, love and hope...you see the point; the meaning of this Sunday can be different,…
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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

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

Testifying to the light

Today is the second Sunday of Advent when we light the candle of peace in my faith community, and I am sitting at my desk, looking out the window, watching the few snow flakes that came disappear and change to freezing rain. What we meditate upon each week in Advent is not set by some great rule book; different communities follow different patterns and in my church family it happens to be Hope, Peace, Joy, Love.  Other churches follow other rituals:  for the Methodists, the Sundays represent expectation, hope, joy, and purity; sometimes it is promise, light, love and hope...you see the point; the meaning of this Sunday can be different,…
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

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

Testifying to the light

Today is the second Sunday of Advent when we light the candle of peace in my faith community, and I am sitting at my desk, looking out the window, watching the few snow flakes that came disappear and change to freezing rain. What we meditate upon each week in Advent is not set by some great rule book; different communities follow different patterns and in my church family it happens to be Hope, Peace, Joy, Love.  Other churches follow other rituals:  for the Methodists, the Sundays represent expectation, hope, joy, and purity; sometimes it is promise, light, love and hope...you see the point; the meaning of this Sunday can be different,…
Read More