November 4, 2018 15 years ago, in the summer of 2003, I was pacing around St Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Fairview, Pennsylvania. It was the day that Emma and I got married. At one point, my Dad stopped me and asked me if I was ok. I said, “yes, I’m just anxious…I really don’t like the idea of standing up on the altar with 175 people all staring at me.” My dad paused, thought for a second, smiled, then put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Andy, I don’t think you have anything to worry about…they’re not going to be looking at you.” Fast Forward to the Fall of 2016…our family had been coming to St Paul’s for about 4 years, and I was approached one Sunday, asking if I’d be interested in running to serve on the Vestry. Emma and I talked about it…we prayed about it… and […]
Read more →Take my lips O Lord, and speak through them; take our minds and think with them. Take our hearts and set them on fire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Poor Job. This sinless man who feared God was tested left right and center for apparently no reason. He lost his property, his children, his health, his friends and most importantly had his whole belief system tested. The goodness of God who Job had always known was called into question. What he had heard from others he now experiences personally in his own life. And it torments him. Why is he being tested like this? Why? Why when he has been so faithful is he now confronted with seemingly unjust suffering? We all suffer at some times in our lives and we all ask the question why? Why me God? What did I do to deserve this? There is no […]
Read more →October 21, 2018 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Two men were marooned on an Island. One man paced back and forth worried and scared while the other man sat back and was sunning himself. The first man said to the second man, “Aren’t you afraid we are about to die.” “No,” said the second man, “I make $10,000 a week and tithe faithfully to my church every week. It’s Stewardship Month at my church. My Pastor will find me.” MISSIONARY JIM ELLIOT has Said: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” Then there was little Timmy, who didn’t want to put his money in the offering plate one Sunday morning, so his mother decided to use some hurried creative reasoning with […]
Read more →August 5, 2018 A couple of weeks ago Rod and I went on vacation to Alaska. We did not go on a cruise but instead we went on a tour of the interior with a group of 15 people. We started in Fairbanks , in the center of the State, then went north by small plane to Wiseman, population of 18, above the Artic Circle. There we met Jack who showed us his home and talked to us about how he survived all year by working with a plan for how to survive the changes of season. Sometimes repairing his log cabin, sometimes hunting to fill his below ground freezer in the perma frost, sometimes tending his vegetable patch. He had solar panels which would only work during the summer and a generator for winter. He uses Amazon Prime for many of his deliveries but it takes 3 weeks for […]
Read more →I had an incident in my life over 46 years ago that I have often thought about. Rod and I had been married almost a year and we were living in an apartment in Manhattan. One Friday evening we were preparing to have friends over for dinner and I dropped a pan of boiling water on my bare foot. Instinctively I dashed into the bathroom and ran cold water over it. It was a real mess and we had no idea what to do. We had only been in Manhattan a few months, we were from another country and did not know then the procedures in America. We knew few people, had no idea where the hospitals were and had no doctor. But we needed help. I remembered that in the apartment next door there was a man with an eastern European name who had the word doctor before his […]
Read more →It often begins with a still small voice – a whisper in the very soul of our being. At least that is how it began for Samuel in a case of what psychologists call “the cocktail party effect.” That is where your brain will hear your name being spoken even when it is uttered from across a crowded room. In other words, our brains are hardwire to be on point for the slightest mentioning of our name. In this case, Samuel’s room was filled only with sleep and possibly snoring… and then came that still small voice. Samuel’s story comes to us in an unusual time and setting. The Israelites have fled from Egypt, made their way through the desert, and are now settled in the Promised Land. In fact, they have been there for quite some time by now, but the people are not united. The people are broken […]
Read more →A flash mob is defined as “a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, and then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.”[i] Typically, a flash mob is organized via social media, texting, or email. The first flash mobs were created in 2003 by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper’s Magazine. Wasik said, “the mobs started as a kind of playful social experiment meant to encourage spontaneity and big gatherings…”[ii] The first attempt at a flash mob was unsuccessful as the store the mob was heading to was tipped off. That problem was avoided in the next attempt by sending people to four different bars in Manhattan where they then (and only then) received further instruction. 130 people went to Macy’s on 36th Street to all stare at one rug telling […]
Read more →Scripture readings: http://www.lectionarypage.net/ “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Last week we heard from Mark about the women approaching the tomb where Jesus had been laid and how they were worried how they were going to roll the heavy stone away from the entrance. But the stone has been rolled away and they are suddenly afraid and are told to tell no one. And that is where Mark leaves the story. Afraid. None of the other gospel writers leaves us in fear and silence. And over the years as the Gospel of Mark has been copied, writers have given us an alternative ending to Mark’s. They have given us the full story, like Matthew, Luke and John. Fear and silence may have been fleeting emotions but resurrection is the good news. Jesus Christ is risen. This second Sunday of Easter builds on the […]
Read more →April 1, 2018 In 1609 Galileo aimed his rudimentary telescope up to the night sky. He later wrote of that experience saying, “It is a beautiful and wonderful sight to behold the body of the moon…” That first up-close view of the moon led Galileo to question the contemporary belief of that time – that all things in the universe revolved around the earth. Yes, Galileo looked up at the heavens using a telescope and what he saw forever revolutionized our understanding of the universe. And it all began with our ordinary and quite familiar moon. As an Easter people, we can sometimes find the resurrection story has become so familiar to us that we no longer approach the narrative in awe and wonder. And yet, it is a story that invites nothing less than astonishment. Resurrection is so other, so foreign to the normal realities of life. We are […]
Read more →March 11, 2018 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. Happy Mothering Sunday. Yes Happy Mothering Sunday So the story goes that during the 16th century, people returned to their mother church for a service to be held on Laetare Sunday ie the 4th Sunday in Lent. Your mother church was either the church where you were baptized, or the local parish church, or the nearest cathedral, that being the mother church of all the parish churches in a diocese. In later times the day was called Mothering Sunday and became a day when domestic servants were traditionally given a day off to visit their mother church, usually with their own mothers and other family members, before the busy responsibilities of Holy Week and Easter. It was often the only time that whole families could gather together for […]
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