Category: The Daily Sip

One last, little sip…

Not too long ago, while chatting with a particularly ineffective Canon to the Ordinary, the kind of climber that desperately and repeatedly runs for, and fails at, elections to various Bishoprics, I said of a bullying bishop “He would behave better, even in his clear incompetence, if he would, even...

on hell-fire

This is a marshmallow on a wrought iron roasting-spit, deep in the fires of my woodstove.  The marshmallow had arrived as a s’mores gift box, complete with graham crackers and chocolate.  It was one of those random gifts we rarely receive.  No reason.  No particular occasion.  Just one friend saying...

Righteous Translation

Stoneware Cremains Vessel in two glazes, cone six oxidation with Peacock Ore finial. It is easy to feel frustrated or even angry when things don’t turn out the way we expected.  A dropped vase. A burned cake. A lost job. The end of a marriage. Mushroom soup when the sherry...

Transitions

Western thought is difficult to untangle from Western religion since the latter so often formed the former.   We like to be sure of things.  Sure there is a God.  Sure that sins are forgiven. Sure that God called me to this or that. Sure that there is an eternity, that it has...

The Fall Into Grace

Might we please reconsider the idea that God tells us if we are good or bad? Through disasters or cancers interpreted as celestial discipline? Through clergy telling us, they have interceded on our behalf to pronounce blessing or absolution? Through the ups and downs of “It’s Easter - hurray -...

Formation

To examine one’s own life is to notice the patterns.  What keeps appearing?  What happens over and over again? What is life trying to teach me? Yesterday I had an open house at my pottery studio.  Guests came to visit, in masks, some from an hour’s drive, one at a time and sat...

Loopholes

The difference between faith and belief is one of those loopholes which has long kept me out of trouble among my more pious clergy friends.  I’m always getting yelled at about things I write. It’s fun; it’s sort of like ecclesial bumper cars. I love loopholes.  They can be so...

Resilience

The clay I form on the pottery wheel when I have some time off from work, is a kind of companion to me.  We talk.  Sometimes we argue. Sometimes we just sit together looking out the long windows that offer a view of the island’s rainy, green forests. Yes, we sit together,...

Delightful Darkness

In the darkness of the Dark Ages (about 500 ad to about 800 ad), God was presented to the people by the bishops and clergy as a fearful, veiled mystery, off in the distant darkness, angry, brooding and vengeful. God was presented more like a vicious teenager than a loving creator.  It kept...

Leaving a mark

These are the chop markers I use to leave a mark on the pots I make at my potter’s wheel.  This is a tea bowl that I had recently turned upside-down, up-ending it to carve the “foot” of the bowl smooth and then marking it as “by the hand of...