All rights reserved
© Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, 2011-2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
https://bookstore.upperroom.org/Products/1921/a-family-like-mine.aspxWhom Shall I Fear: Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence
https://www.amazon.com/Whom-Shall-Fear-Questions-Christians/dp/0835819671-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
RevGalBlogPals
Meta
Author Archives: Rosalind C Hughes
Ash Wednesday comes around again
Ashes line the grate after the great snow storm. Chill strikes down the chimney; a ghost stepping over the grave of last night’s fire. Ashes lift and shiver, settle and sigh, whisper to the warm wood tales of passion; eagerly, … Continue reading
A prayer for a bad day
(Save it for when you need it. May you never need it.) This post first appeared at the Episcopal Cafe, Speaking to the Soul, on February 10, 2021 There are days that will not let go.They drag at you like … Continue reading
red white and blue
Content warning for fear of gun violence at a school sirens stretch the air like an old jazz horn lights the color of a fresh wound pause snow around the school drive pounded into ice by parents pacing out their … Continue reading
Posted in Gun control, poetry, prayer, story
1 Comment
Love, knowledge, authority, and unclean spirits
The unclean spirits knew Jesus, and they named him. Jesus knew the man, and he loved him. Continue reading
Being human in Nineveh
This byword for sin and evil changed its ways, and its fine robes for sackcloth and ashes, because a prophet, reluctant, inadequate, and very fishy, walked among them. Because he came to see them not as political cartoons, memes, or caricatures, he found himself acting as a human toward them. Continue reading
Prostitutes and Pharisees: enough of contempt
Any time that we use another human being for our own gratification, without due respect to the full image of God, the full image of Christ within them, we commit the kind of blasphemy to which Paul refers. When we exploit one another for economic gain, or put someone down to bolster our own ego; when we use another to vent our frustration, of any kind, to vent our anger, to be our scapegoat or our escape; when we label the other with our own sin and blame; when we treat any other person as less than as gloriously full of the image of the divine as we are, then we are subject to the kind of judgement we normally reserve for those we consider sinners. Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Genesis 38, John 1:43-51, John 8:1-11, Joshua 2, Martin Luther King, Matthew 1:1-17, Rahab, Ruth, Tamar
Leave a comment
Resisting evil
On the Feast of the Epiphany, the day on which we celebrate God’s revelation of the Incarnation of Christ to the nations of the world, images from our nation’s capital were cast about the globe of insurrectionists wrapped in flags, some with the name of the president and symbols of civil war, and some which bore with them the holy name of Jesus. Continue reading
Posted in current events, Holy Days, sermon
Tagged Acts 19:1-7, Baptism of Our Lord, Epiphany, Trump insurrection
Leave a comment
A prayer for the preacher when words fail
January 9, 2021 Beyond Jordan, the baptizer cried repentance, preaching to snakes, devouring locusts, razing the wilderness with his words, confronting kings and drowning sins. At his neck, the knowledge of his own humility, the prickling of glory about to … Continue reading
Posted in current events, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged John the Baptist, preaching, the baptism of Jesus, Word of God
2 Comments
The Cross
The Cross January 6, 2021 Empty his cross took on a life fame and infamy of its own Withered by sun and swollen the wood rotted down Romans rotating home took mementos of their tour symbols of conquest caked with … Continue reading
Epiphany: the Lord shall arise upon you
If we find ourselves in darkness for a season, we have no need to be afraid of it, for Christ is with us, for darkness is the womb of God. If we find ourselves uncertain of the way forward, the heavens clouded and the north star shrouded, we have seen a light that is not distant from us, not hidden in the heavens or shrouded by clouds of grief or of glory, but borne among us, wherever the love of God is remembered, and the child of God attended with mercy and justice and humility. Continue reading
