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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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Tag Archives: family
On a Wednesday
On Wednesdays, I think about my mother. Arise, shine, for your light has come, the daily morning prayer declares, on a Wednesday. I hear my mother calling, “Rise and shine!” Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory … Continue reading
Posted in poetry, prayer
Tagged book of common prayer, Cancticle 11, Daily Office, family, grief, Isaiah 60:1, rise and shine, Third Song of Isaiah
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Survivor guilt
It occurred to me this morning that my mother and I do not often talk anymore. It is as though, since she died, our worlds have diverged. Continue reading
Maundy Thursday 2015
When I came home, my foot was bleeding from a cut acquired through the wearing of open-toed sandals in a dirty and dangerous city. My mother came into the bathroom where I was going through the tortured motions you have to go through in order to get your own feet under running water and into clean bandages. Without hesitation, my mother took my feet out of my hands, washed them, anointed them with antibiotic ointment, and bandaged them for me. As she worked, she offered from her knees and from her heart her forgiveness, her acceptance, her love; and I found myself doing the same. Neither of us had changed our position, yet love and mercy won, and we were reconciled. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged discrimination, family, foot washing, forgiveness, Maundy Thursday
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Wild honey
I will not be preaching about John the Baptist tomorrow, but I have been thinking about his wild honey habit and the sweetness of such mercies found along the way. Each of my mothers, who were both called Ann(e), had … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, meditation, other words
Tagged adoption, bees, family, honey, John the Baptist
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Year A Proper 8: Whoever welcomes you
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me; whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me (Matthew 10:40). When my parents took me home, they invited into their family a whole other set of DNA, a whole other history, a whole other … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon preparation
Tagged adoption, baggage, family, Matthew 10:40-42
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Hard of hearing
Tender words shouted at my father; love rendered hard in his hearing.
Lenten meditation
Today’s meditation, offered as part of a multi-authored series available through the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio @ http://www.dohio.org: It is a day like no other, this Thursday in the fifth week of Lent. It isn’t one of the “big” days, … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, meditation
Tagged Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, family, Lent, loss, stroke
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Year A Advent 1
And so the season, the year, begins in the middle – in the middle of the story, in the middle of a field where two men are working, and there then was one; in the mill, where two women are … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged Advent, Christmas, family, Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44, Matthew 5:23-24, Noah, Psalm 122, reconciliation, relationship, Romans 13:11-14
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Year A Advent 1: starting in the middle
In the middle of the story, in the middle of the day, when two women are in the middle of a studied silence over the millstone. They are not speaking. One of them is not speaking so hard, she disappears. … Continue reading
Posted in lectionary reflection, sermon preparation
Tagged family, forgiveness, healing, left behind, Matthew 24:36-44, Noah, regret, relationships, resentment, the flood, Year A Advent 1
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Rumours of war
I dreamed of the young ones on graduation day. They were leaving for war, assembled rank and file on the high school field, the front line singled out and sent away. We tried to reach them for a parting embrace; … Continue reading
over the water 