Author Archives: Rosalind C Hughes

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About Rosalind C Hughes

Rosalind C Hughes is an Episcopal priest, poet, and author living near the shores of Lake Erie. After growing up in England and Wales, and living briefly in Singapore, she is now settled in Ohio. Rosalind is the author of A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing , and Whom Shall I Fear? Urgent Questions for Christians in an Age of Violence, both from Upper Room Books. She loves the lake, misses the ocean, and is finally coming to terms with snow.

Unless a seed

The risk for the seed – consumed by birds, razed by the sun, drowned by hail and fire falling like rain – the risk of being broken open, swallowed by the earth, digested and transformed into new generations is a … Continue reading

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Perpetua and her companions

It is always a question, isn’t it, when we read of these martyrs, what we would do? How we would face the crisis, the challenge to our faith, the pleas of friends and family to save ourselves, to care for our own interests – or theirs – in place of the way of the Cross. Continue reading

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All these words

Then God spoke all these words.
God spoke all these words because God knew, God knows, that we, we humans, have been known to be foolish, and foolhardy, and even malicious in our misuse of God, creation, and one another. We need these warning labels, all of these words, because God knows what we are capable of, left to our own devices. Continue reading

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War

I want to write about the unbearable irony of dry breasts in a land of milk and honey, the bitter taste of hunger among the olive groves, but I am not qualified. Instead, I will contemplate the crumpled faces of … Continue reading

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Dove

Once upon a time,so long ago that time itself was barely begun,a thing with wings brooded over deep waters,moving the surface aside to revealcreation. A long time later,but so long ago that history was still in the future,the waters had … Continue reading

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Take up your cross

I am not strong to carry your cross or mine. I stagger beneath the weight of your command yet knowing all the time that you have called your burden easy. Your hands and feet tell another story, unwashed yet from … Continue reading

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The day after

In the days of Noah, God saw that “the earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:11b), and so “God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them’” (Genesis 6:13). Continue reading

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Tell no one

On the mountain top, a conspiracy: Elijah, Moses, and Yeshua plotting to overthrow sin and save the world. Below the cloud line all is clear. In the valley, people die, live, love, and hate without once looking up. Here on … Continue reading

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Which story do we tell?

A fever could be, can be deadly. It is debilitating. It wrings the humanity out of one. She couldn’t tell how long she had lain there, hovering between earth and heaven, but when Jesus came, and took her hand, heaven and earth came together as one, and she felt that new kingdom flowing through her veins, and her heart stopped only long enough to miss a beat as she leapt for joy, and in gratitude ran through the house to celebrate with cakes and oil and wine, to serve and celebrate him who had healed her. Continue reading

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Perspective

Writing the annual report like teaching a child to draw perspective, moulding a year into blocks, trying to keep to scale but death is slippery and shows between the lines; grief will not hold its shape. Joy alone stays along … Continue reading

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