Five years ago, my first year at Southminster, we celebrated Baptism of Our Lord in worship. In the sermon, I mentioned that by being baptized, we join with Christ in his baptism. And God is, therefore, also speaking to us when God’s voice shreds the heavens apart to yell “This is my beloved child, in…
It sounds so decadent, to even write the title of this post. But the word I drew in worship on Sunday, the word I’m going to be praying with this coming year, is “pleasure”. True story. I had been sorting through the word stars last week, getting them ready for worship, and praying over each…
Here are some reflections from around the blogosphere from folks about their new star words. The Pudgy Parson wrote “Joyful and Triumphant” about her word “Triumph”. Whitney, at Glimpses of Grace wrote “Found in Translation” about her word, “Vision”. Mary Beth begins her ruminations on “Testimony” at “Watch This Space” over at Terrapin Station. The…
Today the church celebrates the Feast of Epiphany. But since we’re Presbyterian flavored Christians, we actually celebrated it yesterday in worship. (Mid-week worship for most Presbyterians I know is limited to Christmas Eve, Ash Wednesday, and maybe Maundy Thursday.) Anyhow, we received our new STARwords in worship yesterday and I’ve been drawing stars for blog…
One of my resolutions last year (maybe two years ago? who knows….) was to read more poetry. It worked. I seek out poetry now in a way I didn’t use to do. And the poet who has resonated with me a lot is Rainer Maria Rilke, particularly the Book of Hours. There were many other…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 51,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 19 sold-out performances for that many…
I used to be the person who warned about setting resolutions that weren’t attainable. And I’m thankful we still have those reminders out there. Because I’ve set resolutions at the New Year and I’ve abandoned them by Jan 4. (This may be the best article I’ve read about this lately–“Forget Setting Goals. Focus on This…
My newest contribution at Revgalblogpals for The Pastoral is Political
I shared a link to this article today on Facebook. “What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter” by Tyler Smither, a United Methodist Youth Pastor in Mississippi. It does not matter if you think homosexuality is a sin, or if you think it is simply another expression of human love. It doesn’t matter. Why doesn’t…
Here is the prompt from over at Revgals for the Friday Five: “As we prepare in our churches and homes for Christmas to arrive, we are moving through Advent. It is a time of waiting, expectation and preparation. However, being human, it is also a season of stress and worry. For this Friday Five, share…
Glass Overflowing 