Month: November 2015

to let things simply be

  Onions, peeled, cut in half, roasted in the oven with the chicken, can be a wonderful side dish drizzled with a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper. I made these last week for a gathering of friends - a simple Sunday Chicken roast-off. Foods that show...

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Gratitude is the incense of God’s hopes and longings from us. God needs no sacrifices of blood or loss; no deep bows nor pious prostrations; no perfect altars nor sanctimonious sentiments; no coins to widows, no sad-eyed study. God wants us to see. See the way her mouth turns...

Fruit Cake Recipe

Charles LaFond’s English Christmas Fruit Cake Recipe Mixed on Stir-up Sunday (The last Sunday before Advent), fed whiskey throughout the year, served the following year at Christmas time. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a deep 8 inch cake pan with a double layer of baking parchment or brown...

Celebrating our “yes”

This week we celebrated our parish life with a dinner.  We gathered in the nave by candle-light, 250 of us.  We ate smoked, candied salmon on greens with pomegranate and blueberry dressing, hot, crisp croissants with Hawaiian red, salted butter, warm mushroom and rosemary risotto, roasted butternut squash risotto with...

resentment

I listen to books when I drive and today I needed to pull over when I heard Gabor Mate say that we needed to choose between resentment and guilt.  “Did I hear that right?” I said to myself. He went on to say that people are going to do what...

take Martin’s tour

Yesterday was the feast of Saint Martin of Tours.  He is the patronal saint of our chapel and is considered a model for the parish priest even though he never, to my knowledge, had a parish per se.  He lived in the 4th century in Hungary and went to church...

Silence, Beholding and Pledging

My mentor, Maggie Ross, says that silence and beholding are the natural state of a human who knows they were made in the image and likeness of God. (1) She believes that the solitary moments and periods of our life allow us to be in awe of God and that...

The Words. The words. Making meaning

  This is my letter-writing desk.  I love to write letters.  My father gave me a bottle of ink one day and said, "This little bit of liquid can raise cities and can poison relationships.  Use this ink with great care to motivate people to be their best selves. " ...

Lazarus

  Yesterday, the gospel was the Raising of Lazarus.  When Jesus brings Lazarus back to life, He shouts. Don’t you wonder why Jesus shouts? I do. I am an Episcopalian.  Episcopalians do not shout.  It is rude.  And monks who live in a monastery – they do not shout. Priests...