Month: September 2013

the warrior and the midwife

This painting from a friend's church is of the Archangel.  Church tradition recalls two archetypes which each provide us with powerful but differing tools in the Christian life. On the one hand, we are often finding the need to be or employ a midwife - helping to give birth to...

Eucharist and thanksgiving

  In life there are these thin spots.  They are times in which the veil between heaven and earth becomes stretched so thin that the translucence means that one may almost see from earth to the other side. No one knows what heaven is and yet how could we so...

curry flavor with God

Penang Curry I wonder if the future of the stewardship of money in the church (pledging) is not mostly about simplicity rather than generosity. As stewardship season begins to gear up for the parade of letters, sermons and announcements about giving and pledging to the mission of the church, it...

a meditation in blue and orange

A meditation in orange and blue A cathedral artist placed you here. Are you here at random or was there a plan? You catch the light of the chapel hallway outside the library and you sparkle in the morning but you brood in the afternoon and in the evening you...

the stewardship of our minds and hearts

Tonight we begin"Cathedral Nite." I have never experienced it before, but have seen its outcomes. People are taught scripture, tradition and thought.  There is a massive meal, worship and conversation.  The Eucharist begins the night and a choral compline ends it.  In between, the community gathers to figure out what...

the stewardship of our courage

  Each of the Canons of the Cathedral Chapter have one of these seats in the apse of the high altar.  It is a half-round circle of seats which reminds me of the way the brothers at the monastery used to sit around the apse of the high altar on...

the stewardship of linen-folds

This is a piece of glass which has been placed between the insulated window panes of a glass window over the sink in the sacristy.  Whirling around the sacristy to find a chalice or grab a towel, it would be easy to miss, but my friend Diane pointed it out...

discernment

Discernment and discretion come from the same medieval word, “discretio.”  As the church was emerging out of the dark ages and into a season of locked-down authority and hierarchy (from which she is yet again emerging, but  slowly) the human work of discretio was spiritual work which was two sides...

The One you seek is behind you.

You have been hiking these woods on the top of this mountain for days now. What do you seek? Whom do you seek? I have seen you go by. So has He. We talk. You seem tired but not sleepy. I am a Prayer Tree. I was bent by the...

Somewhere else instead

Halfway down the stairs   is a stair   where i sit.   there isn't any   other stair   quite like   it.     I'm not at the bottom,   I'm not at the top;   so this is the stair   where   I always   stop....