Month: August 2016

Bright, Sparkling, Wise, Beautiful ,Crones – three

The Holy Spirit is a part of the Trinity - One God in three expressions.  We know that.  It’s basic theology to our church.  But I am not sure we have taken the time to appreciate it because I think that The Holy Spirit sort of freaks us out.  I...

Pride and Anger

Sirach 10:18 “Pride was not created for human beings, or violent anger for those born to women.” One of my favorite episodes of comedy is one of the Sinefeld episodes.  Jerry Sinefeld is with his friend Kramer, sitting over an operating theatre, watching an operation in a hospital.  They are...

Is that so?

“When the soul is solidly rooted in... peacefulness, when it is freed of the bonds of every carnal urge, when the unshaking thrust of the heart is toward the one supreme Good, then the words of the apostle will be fulfilled. 'Pray without ceasing,' he said (I Thes. 5:17). 'In...

Breathing light and exhaling dark

Sometimes, when looking at the ceiling of the cathedral, I wonder if those slight marks are smudges left by our angel wings.  I wonder what soars up there, like an upside-down water fall, as we pray together. I wonder if the tips of our wings brush the stone.  I think...

interior solitude and discernment

“When society is made up of people who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when people are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society...

Enough for now as a sacrament

Enough. In my fifth decade I am beginning to consider this word.  I am sure others, better people than I, have arrived at this word sooner in their lives and perhaps some never will.  It was a word I always considered dull.  Heavy. Small. But then I think of Jesus...

stauros

The Reverend Doctor Joe Wolyniak holding the Myrrh-bearing women Icon and exposing his tattoos taken from the icon. Mark 8:34 “He called the crowd with the disciples, and said to them, `If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.’” Now, most people...

fear and curiosity

It is a technology that works, this new thing I have heard from Elizabeth Gilbert; whose every word I read with slavish devotion as with Krista Tippet, Brene Brown, Anne Lamott and Maya Angelou.  I read what men say too but there are fewer of them worth the time. Jesus,...

tatoos and simplicity

Simplicity is hard for me to chose.  I come from a family not naturally given to it though my father would have chosen it had he not married my mother. I come from a long line of men, on both sides of my family, whose self-esteem was buttressed by possessions. ...

Blue feathers

Sometimes I take my mourning-monocle from the drawer by my bed and put it back on, its glass circle encased in the blood of wound. My face muscles grip it in the perpetual, contorted, wince, needed to keep it in place. Its black, silk string hangs like a bell-pull to...