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Category Archives: spiritual autobiography
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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On Spiritual Communion
Even if I could not yet receive the Bread and the Wine bodily, it was important beyond measure that they were consecrated, and that others, some-bodies, shared them on my behalf and enfolded me in their mysteries. Continue reading
Posted in sermon, spiritual autobiography
Tagged Communion, concomittance, Eucharist, Odo Casel
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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
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Living stones
Have you ever wandered through an old graveyard, reading the tombstones, wondering about the stories that they tell? Most give little away. Many speak names, dates, perhaps a close relationship or two. … Stones have little space for ambiguity or nuance. They are hard-nosed, they get straight to the point. They do not give up extra flourishes easily. “Well loved” is the kind of distillation of a life they can support. Names, dates, and one salient detail to sum up the measure of a man, or a mother. Continue reading
All Souls
O eternal Lord God, who holdest all souls in life … (Book of Common Prayer, 202) Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, spiritual autobiography
Tagged All Souls, ensoulment, grief, miscarriage, pregnancy loss
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When you pray
This was the prayer that first made me fall for Jesus, when I was a child. Of course, I learnt the expanded form that we use in worship; the one that we prayed, hands together, eyes closed, every morning at school assembly time (never at home). But even in its stripped down, barest form, as Luke presents Jesus teaching it, the world which this prayer conjures into being is enough to set my spirit on fire. Continue reading
Trust
A man whose last name we didn’t know, whom we had met last night, pointed out a narrowing canyon and said, “Walk that way. I’ll meet you on the other side.” Continue reading
Posted in spiritual autobiography, story
Tagged Holy Land, Jordan, sabbatical, Wadi Rum
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Fear of God
I am a professional at proclaiming the promises of God. I make excuses not to put God to the test. Continue reading
Posted in spiritual autobiography, story
Tagged Holy Land, Jerusalem, pilgrimage, sabbatical
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Nevertheless, she preached
Seeing and hearing a woman preach, for the first time in my life, opened windows in my soul that I did not know had been barred shut. Continue reading
Posted in spiritual autobiography, story
Tagged gender equality, lay readers, ordination, preaching, women priests
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Heaven on earth
Looking ahead to Sunday’s Transfiguration and the disciples’ awe-filled witness to the glory of God revealed in Christ, I have been thinking about religious experiences; extraordinary revelations of the divine. I occasionally wonder if I was “done out of” a … Continue reading
Posted in Holy Days, sermon preparation, spiritual autobiography, story
Tagged Incarnation, Transfiguration
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over the water 