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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-
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Author Archives: Rosalind C Hughes
Suspended animation
Oh honey, it’s not the suspense that’s killing you. In that moment when the knife slices open the rope, fingertip fibres flicking away one by one, unravelling, their grip slipping; when the last straw breaks, in that one perfect moment … Continue reading
Posted in poetry
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Year B Proper 14: “goodness can go viral, too”
I have been where Elijah was. Not the physical location, exactly; Mount Horeb is thought to be in the south of the country, and I was in the north, staying at a kibbutz near the Lebanese border. It was a … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged 1 Kings 19:1-8, DWB, Elijah, John 6, Mariann Budde, Peter and Rondesia Jarrett Schell
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Transfiguration
stripped to our atoms, our shining core, is glory [still] captive to chaos
more than watchmen for the morning
In the silence before the dawn,
in the fearful shadows that embalm
the edges of sleep, each sound
is amplified: Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer
Tagged absence, God, prayer, Psalm 130
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Year B Proper 13: What kind of messiah do you want?
When the people had been fed with the loaves and the fishes, they tried to capture Jesus to make him a king, but he slipped away. When they tracked him down, he confronted them, “Look! It’s not enough to want me to feed you miracles every day, loaves and fishes, manna and quail. There is more to the life of God, life with God, than the occasional miracle.” Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged Christian commitment, God, loaves and fishes, manna, Messiah, miracles, outdoor worship, quail, social policy
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“a soft tongue can break bones” – Proverbs 25:15b
with all the tenderness of a tiger’s tongue, flaying soul from skin, rasping marrow until, gasping, you surrender all truth; you would give your eye-teeth for such love.
Unmiracle
A miracle is, by definition, unlikely to happen. When our daughter was ten, I lost her in the woods. She was ten, and actively honing her skills in defiance, contrariness, and flouncing. It was our first visit after moving away, … Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, prayer, story
Tagged 2Kings 4, Elisha, lost and missing, miracles, Sidney Heidrick, Year B Proper 12
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Year B Proper 12: Breaking bread
“All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee,” many of us grew up intoning at every Offertory presentation. We are familiar with the concept that all that we have is of God, and that there … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged 2 Kings 4:42-44, abundance, bread, Elisha, Ephesians 3:14-21, famine, God's grace, Jesus Christ, John 6:1-21
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Empty churches
Mary, the mother church, eking out milk to last the week; Monday morning, spent, she rests convalescent, quiet A void of another kind, Shakespeare’s tomb hastily built into Babel; who sees the stranger seeking sanctuary from its old iron face? St … Continue reading
Family entertainment
“Off with his head!” cried the Queen of Hearts. It had all begun much earlier, with a powerless princess, pawn pushed about in a dizzying dance by the Queen and her King; the Bishop turned slantwise away, his excited disapproval … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry
Tagged Alice in Wonderland, John the Baptist, Salome
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over the water 