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A Family Like Mine: Biblical Stories of Love, Loss, and Longing
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Author Archives: Rosalind C Hughes
Lost in prayer
Sometimes when I pray the words scurry by like ants I watch their silent progress unregistered on the kitchen scale undulating in their trail unnoticed until they become a swarm indistinguishable one from the next Sometimes there is one you see that carries five thousand times its weight … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
Tagged ants, distraction, Episcopal Cafe, Episcopal Journal, prayer
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… There your heart will be also
“What did Jesus treasure?” Or, to paraphrase a once-popular wristband, “What would Jesus accumulate?”
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Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Ash Wednesday, heart, Luke 12:32-40, Luke 18:18-25, Matthew 6:21, treasure
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Where your treasure is
This upcoming Sunday’s Gospel reading includes Jesus’ aphorism: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34 and parallels). Last week, looking for something I have already forgotten, I found at the back of my bedside drawer the name tag of my grandmother’s dog, which I have apparently and largely unknowingly kept for some forty years; hence this poem. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation, spiritual autobiography
Tagged Luke 12:34, Matthew 6:21, treasure
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Bonsai, barns, and building a legacy
I had not realized that such a wide variety of trees could be made into bonsai. Perhaps my favourite was the olive grove, a miniature version of the scene that greets visitors to the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem. Some of the bonsai were relatively young; others were hundreds of years old. I got to thinking about the generations of trainers and nurturers who had tended those trees – how many hands must they have passed through? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged #GunstoGardens, bonsai, Ecclesiastes 2:18-23, inheritance, legacy, Luke 12:13-21, wills
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The sin of Sodom
It reads like a folktale, and as such it has taken on a resonance that permeates our culture. When we think of Sodom, we think of sin. But when we think of the sin of Sodom, we often get it quite wrong. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged climate crisis, Sodom and Gomorrah
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Heron
The heron is back. No doubtit is not the same one as before.This heron is taller, leaner,fixes me with a bolder eye. No doubtthe old one is buried beneath the surface of shared memory, guiding this newcometo fertile fishing grounds. No doubt“One day … Continue reading
Where we sit
This is the setting against which we do our work. The inequality of labour and economics: Abraham ordering his servant to butcher and prepare a calf in short order, while he stands with his guests; Martha run off her feet and out of her mind. The violence that erupts between those who do not understand nor see one another as a father, as a child, as a person, but code them as an obstacle, an aggressor, or a threat. Continue reading
Posted in sermon, story
Tagged #GC80, 80th General Convention, Abraham and Sarah, angels unawares, Genesis 18:1-10, hospitality, Luke 10:38-42, Mary and Martha
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At the intersection, revisited
Listening to this morning’s Gospel of the parable of the Good Samaritan, envisioning the steep and scary road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, I was moved to revisit also the intersection referenced in yesterday’s prayer poem, to seek hope in the mercy that Jesus related. Where is our mercy? Where is our hope? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, story
Tagged Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37, Year C Proper 10
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At the intersection
At the intersection of futility and ragehangs a monument to discord,its anthem the harsh horn punctuatedby arguments, epithets, and gunshots.It is not rooted in earth or tarmac,not rendered in stone or broken glass.You will breathe it unknowing in air hung … Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, poetry, prayer
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Peace, and if not peace, then protest
If we feel as though defeat is always at hand, may it be a reminder of the cross of Christ, and be turned to our hope. If we feel as though the world is at war with itself, with us; if we think the world we thought we knew is strange and full of wolves, may it be a reminder of our own status as lost sheep, dependent on the love of our shepherd to find us and bring us home. If we feel as though peace has dissolved into protest, may we lift up our feet and find ourselves on the way of the Cross. Continue reading
over the water 