A Positively Poetic Priest

I have another story. Another moment of God smacking me in the face. (Kind of like the rock story, which is here .) I've lived in Houston a full four months now. A whole season. A season in which the temperature has changed! (Much to my neighbors' chagrin actually.) Its been a huge change, one that I haven't been able to ignore at all. As much as Texas is still part of the same country and many things are the same, living in Texas has been a huge transition for me. And I cannot tell you how many times I have questioned this decision. While I have never once said to myself, I want to leave, I have asked myself a lot of questions along a similar vein: Why Texas? How can I live here? How am I going to get my snow fix? Why did I move away from all the people I know and love? In the midst of all my questioning and wondering, my church offered this Advent preparation morning retreat called Cup of Wonder. The gist is that you go for two hours, there is a speaker, you p...

16 November 2014 Proper 28 "God of our journey, you call us to an adventure, to venture with the treasures you have given us. When we fear, we refuse to risk, and our talents are buried and rotted. Free us from ourselves, from our dread of life’s chances, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen." (Revised from Bob Elden, preachingtip.com) I love the phrase from the collect this morning: "Grant us so to hear [the scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them." During my time in seminary, it was sort of a catch phrase. There was so much about the scriptures, church history, theology, ministry, that we needed to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest... Even though we thought we already knew the stories and the major points about being Episcopalian, there is always more to learn. One of the things emphasized by my teachers was that parables need some inward digestin...