All rights reserved
© Rosalind C Hughes and over the water, 2011-2026. 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
Word, will, work
A sermon for September 27, 2020, at the Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio. This week Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state at the Capitol. The US passed a grim milestone with 200,000 deaths from COVID-19. One … Continue reading
God gets maternal anxiety
My friend and my mentor each touched upon that near-fatal intersection of parenting and perfectionism that will plague me with anxiety until the kingdom come. Does God, that perfect Parent, suffer anxiety? Continue reading
Posted in meditation, other words, spiritual autobiography
Tagged anxiety, clergy women, Embodied, Lee Ann Pomrenke, motherhood
3 Comments
Undertow
Ripping tides, throwing horses, hurling seabirds to the sky, thrashing rock into sand, wrecking the abandoned homes of limpets and clams, reducing it all to grit and foam, beaching itself in exhaustion, receding; the sand dries, the rock stands and … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
Leave a comment
Absolute mercy
Josephs’ brothers were afraid that his mercy was not real, because they could not imagine being that merciful themselves. The servant was afraid that his king would change his mind and call in his debt after all, and his mistrust of mercy, and his failure to multiply it, made him do terrible things, and led to his own downfall, and perpetuated the systems of injustice that surrounded him. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged bail funds, debtors' prison, forgiveness, Genesis 50:15-21, Matthew 18:21-35, mercy, parables
Leave a comment
Bless, and do not curse or kill
Peter is angry, I’m angry, and we each struggle to see the way forward.
Then there’s Jesus.
Do not set your mind on earthly things, he admonishes. Don’t get mired in anger and defeat. Do heal the sick, do bring good news to the poor, do raise up the broken-hearted; but don’t confuse crucifixion with failure. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged BLM, Christ, cross, Hebrews 12:1-2, Jacob Blake, Kenosha, Matthew 16:21-28, Romans 12:9-21, Violence
Leave a comment
Friday
Breaking open pistachios by the Friday fire, pitching shells toward the pit. I wonder whom the meat of casements that arrive empty fed. Others refuse to open, peeling back my thumb nails; I surrender, hurl them to the fire. A … Continue reading
Crumbs
If Jesus was putting on a scene in order to convict his disciples of their own exclusionary, xenophobic, racist, sexist, selfish attitudes towards the woman – “Make her go away!” they say. “Make her stop talking” – then we have yet fully to learn our lesson. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged Canaanite woman, difference, Jesus, racism, sexism, Syro-phoenician woman, xenophobia
1 Comment
Elements of creation, currency of compassion
What would we pay to defray the risk of storing explosive chemicals among people’s living spaces? What would we give for an economy that could never be said to depend upon a thousand deaths per day from pandemic to stay afloat? What would we confront in order to be able to offer a cup of clean water to the children of Flint?
What would it take for us to get out of the boat? Continue reading
What will you share?
Now that everyone can distribute crumbs among the masses with a keystroke, what will we share? Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged feeding of the five thousand, Matthew 14:13-21, Year A Proper 13
1 Comment
Who among you: an open letter about guns
An open letter to the Ohio Senate 133rd General Assembly regarding Senate Bill 137: Exempt from training if allowed to go armed in school safety zone. Continue reading
over the water 