A Positively Poetic Priest

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 8 BCP 230) If you've ever read through Paul's seminal letter to the Romans, you'll know he put his mind to work writing it. Paul uses every trick and device of reason and scripture to appeal to the new Christians living in Rome. He uses his great reasoning skills to bring to fruit some of the best theology we have from the Bible. He outlines faith in Christ and begins the Church's understanding of Christology, he outlines justification by faith and God's work of salvation through Christ.  Paul didn't have tradition or the Church to fall back on when he started writing his letters...

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 7 BCP 230) "Tradition! Tradition!" One of my favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof. Set in the first decade of the 20th century in Russia, the musical follows Tevye and his family (5 daughters!) as they change with the times and eventually are evicted from their town for being Jewish. At the beginning of the story, Tevye and the village have been following the Jewish customs and traditions they have known for generations. As the story unfollows, gradually these traditions and customs are faced, some with understanding and some with... well, stubbornness.  As we have been faced with changing times and customs, many of our older traditions have had to be looked at. We have h...

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 6 BCP 230) In thinking about foundations last week, I naturally thought about the Episcopal Church's foundations in scripture, tradition, and reason; the three legged stool attributed to Richard Hooker from his "Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie," despite never actually writing about a stool. However, scripture, tradition, and reason are the ways in which the Church holds fast to the foundation of God throughout the generations and centuries.  We live in a very fluid and rapid time of history. We eat fast food, we have instant conversation across millions of miles, we expect to pre-order and know things ahead of time. And sometimes in the midst of all this ...

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 5  BCP 229) Even as self-labeled Christians, it can sometimes be easy to forget that our foundation is in God. Thankfully, every time we engage in prayer or Church services or spiritual practices or Bible study, we are given another reminder that God is the foundation of our identity. The Collect for this coming Sunday states this straight away: "O God, from whom all good proceeds." All which is good in this universe, including us, start with God. With God as our foundation, the slings and arrows of this world are a bit easier to bear. We have already been known as "good" by our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. We don't have to worry if we are 'good enough', we have been claimed by G...

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of the summer season. Many people celebrate with backyard picnics and parties. The weather is usually nice (though the forecast isn't good for my neck of the woods this weekend) and everyone is ready to be outside in the sun after the winter snows and spring rains.  In pre-pandemic times, Memorial Day weekend always included parades and outside ceremonies, cemetery visits and backyard barbeques. For some of us across the country, this Memorial Day will hold some of those things, unlike last year. Some of us are still under restrictions, so it might still be more muted than before. However, you celebrate the coming weekend, there are ways to make the experience a little less harmful to the environment.  Now, you might be thinking, how could Memorial Day weekend be harmful to the environment? Well, mostly in through the trash we leave behind as we go through all the outside events. Parades often involve throwing candy, which ends up a...

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday BCP 228) Trinity Sunday! The most confusing liturgical holy day on the calendar! Despite our continued confusion about the Trinity which is our God, Trinity Sunday is also one of my favorite holy days. This is one of the Sundays we cannot even pretend to understand everything. On Trinity Sunday we acknowledge the awe-inspiring mystery of God. In focusing our energy most of the year on stories of Jesus in the gospels during church, we can almost start to get the sense that we can understand God through Jesus. However, when we ...

My husband has started getting into environmentalism in his own way, mostly so far through technology. He recently bought us a AA & AAA Sustainability Kit from Pale Blue, aka, rechargeable batteries. He uses plenty of batteries in his Xbox controller, remote controls, and all sorts of little gadgets around the house. All my talk about making environmentally friendly choices for our home spurred him to look into rechargeable batteries.  When it comes to the simple environmental impact of batteries, rechargeable batteries are the way to go. Every year Americans throw away somewhere around 3 billion batteries, about 250 million tons worth. This means toxic chemicals are being thrown into landfills on a regular basis and leeching into the soil. Unfortunately, no matter what kind of batteries we use, disposable, rechargeable, or other, there are heavy metals or other toxic chemicals in all of them. The best way to use rechargeable batteries is to use them for their entire lifespan. ...