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
Book review: Denial is my spiritual practice, Hackenberg & Spong
I recommend that you acquire a copy, and keep it close for those moments when, for the sake of faith or sanity, you need to find yourself reflected in the mirror of another soul that has wrestled with life and with God. Continue reading
Eleison
Christ, have mercy, we expostulate once more. Continue reading
Posted in current events, poetry, prayer, story
Tagged #SantaFeShooting, #thoughtsandprayers, gun violence, school shootings
1 Comment
The prayer bear
God as the she-bear protecting her cubs kept coming back around to haunt us. Continue reading
Posted in prayer, story
Tagged childhood, comfort, expansive language, illness, images of God
Leave a comment
The prayer of a lost Leviathan
My Creator, when you made sea monsters for sport, why would you not make me buoyant, flattening the waves, smoothing surfaces, resting zen-like on the moon’s reflection, bathed beautiful by her silver light; why not fiercely playful, breaking unexpectedly, tossing … Continue reading
Our own devices
Small victories, born of God, have a profound effect on the people who encounter them. Small victories born of God, born of love, grow up to conquer the world Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged 1 John 4, baptism, beloved community, Constantine, cross
Leave a comment
Love/hate/relationship
“Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen,” warns the letter writer, and if we are in any way human, our heart sinks. We know whereof we are guilty. Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon, sermon preparation
Tagged 1 John 4, abide, family, hate, James Cone, John 15:1-8, love, Year B Easter 5
Leave a comment
Mark the urgent evangelist
The word, “immediately,” occurs more than twenty times in Mark’s sixteen brief chapters. There is an urgency to his proclamation of the “good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” which has its own profound beauty. Continue reading
Stealing the gospel
More guns bring more violence, and we have had enough of the ‘gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.’ Continue reading
Posted in gun violence, homily, meditation, sermon
Tagged Acts 8:9-25, Columbine, gospel, gun violence, nonviolence, NRA, Simon the Magician
Leave a comment
Resurrection and reality
If you think that the world is so bewildering that nothing makes sense, Jesus has come so patiently to point out his hands, his feet, his broken body, his own spear-pierced heart, to tell us that he is with us, that he has redeemed all of it. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon, story
Tagged death, doubt, Humboldt, Resurrection
Leave a comment
Silent prayer
Eyelids lowered, immersed in unstillness and disquiet; the tumble dryer tumbles, the dishwasher sloshes, the circuits in my head hum in ecstatic, rhythmic union with the beverage fridge. Beyond the glass, fighting rip tides on the wind, a frantic bird … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer, story
Leave a comment
over the water 