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.

Though the fig tree does not blossom

Jesus tells his parable to those who were reeling from the news of national disaster: of Pilate’s political murder and manslaughter in Jerusalem; worshippers taken at the altar for their rebellious resistance, and workers slain by deadly working conditions. Jesus tells his parable to those who are afraid that they will be next, that the powers that be will determine that they, too, are a waste of the soil in which they are planted and rooted. Continue reading →

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Purple

A poem for the first Friday in Lent Continue reading →

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On grief

And so he died, and all at once I understood more of grief than I had before. It beckoned from beyond the door of the tomb. In its mosaic floor I saw mourning not for what was lost only but for what never was,and … Continue reading →

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Stock

The tree had never dreamt to kill; that stuff, it thought, was for the birds,although it knew it, too, had grown rich on the sinew and marrow left at its feet by the hawks and the owls. Still, if anyone had thought to … Continue reading →

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The death of Simeon

Simeon, a man full of the Spirit of God, had been told by that same Spirit that he would live to see the face of God. What more could a man want? Yet who could see God and live? Continue reading →

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Anna in the sanctuary

Widowed, but not alone, shrouded in the living stone of temple prayers woven as a garment of grace haunting the holy place, sanctified and sanctifying the very air with praise. She would not follow them to Egypt, return with them … Continue reading →

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A prayer out of time

O God, take up this day, cradle it like the newborn thing that it is, turn it this way and see the pink sunrise, the bruise of clouds, the barely-lit night which to you is as bright as the day, … Continue reading →

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Mercy

filled with the power of the Spirit, the prophet found the place where it was written: good news to the poor,  release to the captives,and recovery of sight to the blind, The Spirit of the Lord haslet the oppressed go free    –  as … Continue reading →

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Schrödinger’s wedding

Until its surface tension breaks  upon the steward’s tongue – dissipating sweetness,  sweat of vineyard labourers,  honey of the sun-ripened harvest – it is neither water nor wine;  until the jars are filled to overflowing, until a drop is spilled,  … Continue reading →

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What heals history?

We enter this new year, and this new season after Christmas, with some trepidation, don’t we? We are haunted by the shadows of the past, concerned for the present, warned by the violence that greeted the new year in New Orleans and Nevada and far beyond; our hopes and fears for the future year clash and mingle in the air like smoke. 
And yet this is the Feast-day, the celebration of the Epiphany, the manifestation of God’s incarnation to the nations, to us. The bright promise that God is with us, even us. Continue reading →

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