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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
Book Review: Dessert First – Preparing for Death while Savoring Life, by J. Dana Trent
So why does a book about death and grieving have such an odd title? Death is coming for each of us, so we might as well embrace our mortal life and enjoy it, grief and all, with all of its sweetness, tartness, and saltiness. Continue reading
Posted in book review
Tagged chaplaincy, death, funeral, grief, J. Dana Trent, life, memoir, ritual, theology
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The table
Ironically, while we are deciding where to seat him, Jesus is busy setting the table himself. And his invitation is clear:
Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.
Come to me, you who are thirsty, and I will give you living water to drink.
Come, eat of the bread of life, and I will raise you up. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged discipleship, gun violence, Hebrews 13:1-8&15-16, Jesus, Luke 14:1-4, parable, sabbath
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Release to the captives
Do not listen to me. The leader of the synagogue had the pulpit and he talked right past Jesus, and he was wrong. The people – the people had more sense – they saw what Jesus was doing, bringing release to the captive and rest to the weary, spreading the grace of God thick on the Sabbath bread, and they rejoiced at his incendiary kindness, his audacious mercy, his lawless love.
They heard Jesus say, “You are set free,” and they were jubilant. Continue reading
Posted in current events, sermon
Tagged Declaration of Independence, freedom, Luke 12:49-56, promise, sabbath, slavery, The 1619 project
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A prayer for the absence of miracles
Swimming as an act of faith: Faith in the friendliness of the great lake, doorway to the deep- seated sediment of creation; Faith in the body to carry its cargo through the waves, inspired by the brooding, hovering breath of … Continue reading
Everything comes with a side of guns
I did not have the time to wonder deeply why a construction company, expert in damp recovery and replastering, thought that an active shooter drill would be right up their alley (nor why we would call them first in the unfortunate event). I did not have the wherewithal in that Thursday moment to explain my theological aversion to drilling fear into our worship, or the stubborn resistance to the inevitably of guns everywhere that stems from the sanctuary of my foolish faith. Continue reading
Posted in current events, gun violence, story
Tagged Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, fear, mass shooting, nonviolence
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Love will tear us apart
The divisions that Jesus describes are growing pains, signs of the emergence of the kingdom of God. Discipleship stretches our souls to love more deeply, to forgive more recklessly. Discipleship should change us, stretch us, and there will be friction as we rub up against the tolerance of the structures that have formed us. These are the signs of the kingdom, Jesus tells us, so do not be afraid. God is willing and waiting to restore all things in God’s mercy, risking everything alongside you on the Cross, transforming its hard lines into new life through the Resurrection. Continue reading
Chaos and prayer
Without words, prayer falls formless and void; we must speak light to scare chaotic thought into patterns, comforting, familiar as poppies in the hedgerow – the spirit sighs deeply. Without prayer, words usurp God, creating worlds of their own imagination … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
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By faith
A word of encouragement for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost in Year C. The author of the letter to the Hebrews was not, to our knowledge, a theoretical physicist; although they might have been. To declare that “faith is the … Continue reading
A Vigil for the victims of gun violence
We were heart-stricken but honoured to host at Epiphany a Vigil for the most recent victims of mass murder and gun violence, in Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton, organized by God Before Guns. Continue reading
Posted in current events
Tagged Dayton, El Paso, Gilroy, God Before Guns, mass shooting, Vigil, welcome
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America, it is past time to repent
The deadly combination of targeted hatred coupled with widespread individual armouries – an obscene proliferation of weapons of death tucked into our daily life – continues to wreak havoc among us. This is the product and the consequence of sin. Continue reading
over the water 