The poem below has haunted me for a little more than a year. I loved it prior to the pandemics but imposed isolation found me seeking some kind of affirmation and resource for all the emotions which were now carried out inside four walls. When paired with the Seamus Heaney poem yesterday, I am consoled by shafts of light through which angels descend and ascend. I am consoled by what transcends the hard walls and confinement. I find a kind of hope in the process of a veil lifting from a darkened heart and the revelations of simple ordinary quotidian delights. All of this goes into our need to belong and be-loved. “The House of Belonging” Written by  David Whyte I awoke  this morning  in the gold light  turning this way  and that thinking for  a moment  it was one  day  like any other. But  the veil had gone  from my  darkened heart  and  I thought it must have been the quiet  candlelight  that filled m...

  (This is long and I apologize ahead of time but when I sat down to think about commemorating this year a flood of emotion was released and some of it, a lot of it, found its way into this post! The central message, if too long, is THANK YOU and Bless the Space Between Us) Today marks one year of writing daily meditations which I called “liturgeemails” and posted (mostly) on a blog entitled Blessing Imagination. Liturgeemail came from the motivation and calling to connect us in the time of isolation and strange space, to continue to pray together and do the work of the people, albeit remote. I learned quickly how that space diminished with blessing.  I remember the day and the moment clearly when I pressed send to a list of parishioners and family with a trembling hand. I thank my dear friend Dana for more than nudging me in this direction! And I thank the Holy Spirit for more inspiration than I ever thought possible (which is not to say that is always an articulate thing!). ...

  Today we encounter the famous Gospel from John with this idea: God so loved the World that He gave His only Son that we who believe might have eternal life. It has been parsed and coopted, in part because it is so wondrous and in part because we want to define and capture it, reproduce it. That of course fails to give Love its mystery and full power! Later today we gather via Zoom to discuss Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times by Bishop Michael Curry. Bishop Curry believes and demonstrates that Love is not just a dream but can be a reality which transforms despair into hope. I share this belief and hold it very gently... As we pray to the God of Love and ponder love in our lives George Herbert may be a third voice in reminding us of the welcoming, consoling and incarnational power of love.  Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back                                Guilty of dus...

  Yesterday I wrote about Bishop Curry’s notion of intentionally summoning God to add to any equation, which I extend to mean to any problem/solution. It occurred to me in the middle of the night that is exactly what St Francis is doing in his famous prayer of peace: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.  O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive,  it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,  and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. I am imagining these phrases as equations comparing dualisms. Note there is no = between them, rather some kind of hyphen. What happens at the hyphen might be Love, might be Divine. Add love and unde...

  “Prayer matters because when God is brought into the equation of life, something changes. Another possibility emerges.” Bishop Michael Curry, Love is the Way I keep returning to this quote from our Presiding Bishop’s book. Rarely do we use basic mathematical concepts in theology and this one makes such sense to me. It makes me smile. Moreover, we often get stuck in the waiting as though it were a one directional thing: God toward us. This principle seems to give humans some authority, some instrumentality. It signals a mutuality of process.  Bishop Curry’s examples of balancing equations are equally (no pun intended) helpful. Summoning God in moments of prayer or gathering for blessing is much like the notion of “conjuring”. Instead of being used in a magical sense, the calling is not upon spirits plural but upon the Holy Spirit.  Seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be given unto you. When we pray we are asking God to be present in our equations and that changes th...

  One of the most influential books I have ever read, or devoured, is Home Tonight by Henri Nouwen. It is the sequel to his Return of the Prodigal Son containing more reflections on the story and the painting by Rembrandt. Rotating as he did through each character in the painting he learned so much about himself. I learned a lot about “trying on” other less familiar points of view and, in turn, bursting some long held assumptions. What was it like to be the father, the brother, the servants? are important questions alongside the exodus and return of the prodigal. We are all these characters at different times, I suspect. And so, when pondering hospitality recently I remembered Home Tonight and the feelings of welcome, return, fear, jealousy, relief, and the transcending power of love! This is what I wrote: Welcome Home Sgt. Mary Magdalene I was driving through some sleepy New England towns freshly clothed in a downy white snow, when a bright red sign pierced the dreaminess. Welcome...

  I love it when I bump into a quote which meant something to me, which I highlighted, a while ago and suddenly has new meaning or deeper insight. Such is what happened when I re-met this line from John O’Donohue: “When you discover something, you transfigure some the forsakenness of the world.” Yes, and.... He makes this insightful remark after talking about discoveries at the “frontiers” and it sounds a lot like Jesus and Lent and this past wilderness year! As I/we approach anniversaries of pandemic relocations and adjustments, regrets and resolutions, and as I approach one year of writing  liturgeemails !, I am enjoying some pauses and the surprising revelations which have occurred.  Transfigure is a daunting word and one we recently struggled with on Transfiguration Sunday. There is mystery and eeriness in it. O’Donohue brings it down from the mountaintop and into clearer view, if at a frontier or margin or place we might not venture ordinarily. It seems to me that pa...

  I don’t have any better words to describe it than “reorientation”. I have no idea how long it will last; I am trying not to think about that. What I “know” is that somehow I am living more in my heart than in my head, more in a hopeful space than a desperate one, and feeling a sereneness which is very close to silence, which is to say without words. Perhaps, I will be more eloquent one day in a memoir fashion but for now, I feel called to just be there and give thanks. I still love to pray and write and pastor and care for my family. I still love to walk and read and dabble in music and art. The thing which feels different is the way of it; there is little self-consciousness and little evaluation or criticism. Perhaps the best word for this reorientation and way of being is indeed freedom!

  “ We’re only here for a minute, ...We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story.” Brian Doyle It was the most glorious Sabbath! A day marked by crystal cold temperatures and sapphire blue skies. A day for thinking about winter and spring instead of either/or.  Perhaps it was that nondualistic approach to patches of snow next to tiniest of buds which caused me to travel with my mother on a walk. It started of course with tears at her non-physical presence and somewhere in the middle I felt I was accompanied by her spirit. Though our earthly presence is bounded by the tiniest of time, our next realm presence is boundless. Some mighty presence continues and the quality of that presence is for me consoling and inspiring. I found myself thinking about the shards of light and laughter and grace of the day, of the holy time, of her life and the story grew instead of diminishing. I thought ...

  Blessed be God who animates our lives and calls us to open our hearts and minds to emotions which while uncomfortable can be redemptive when expressed as Jesus does. AMEN There are no unsacred places;    there are only sacred places    and desecrated places.   Wendell Berry I would like us to keep this wisdom in our hearts as we consider the Word of God this morning. Today’s lectionary offers a plethora of preaching opportunities. At first blush I thought I would preach about the ten commandments and why it is important that we reclaim them during Lent. After all, we do pray the Decalogue each Sunday and this is becoming blessedly more intentional. Then my mind went to John’s depiction of the cleansing of the temple which is more violent, more angry than the synoptics. I wrestled with desecration and wept again at the events of January 6th at the Capitol. It all felt too raw and too violent.  And then I asked is violence ever just...