You may have seen the commercial. It portrays a loving grandmother welcoming her sweet grandbaby for a visit. But as she takes the child in her arms, suddenly the camera shows the grandmother shockingly transformed, Grimm’s Fairy Tales style, into a wolf, grinning evilly at the baby. It’s an ad for whooping cough vaccine, and … READ MORE…
It was a Saturday in January in 1908, and it was cold. Ten inches of snow lay across the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York. A handful of Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement, a religious community of the Episcopal Church, gathered in the Chapel of Our Lady. Nothing was out of the … READ MORE…
A priest I know is about to retire after 44 years of ordained ministry, and he was recently reflecting on changes he’s seen in the church in those decades. “When I was at Princeton Seminary in the late 60s,” he said, “a group of us students became very interested in Greek Orthodoxy and the early … READ MORE…
A few weeks ago I saw the movie “Brooklyn”. It’s a charming story about an Irish girl who emigrates to the United States. There are some obvious parallels to my own story, and maybe that’s why I liked it so much, besides the fact that it’s a gentle story of love and loyalty, with subtle … READ MORE…
Alleluia, unto us a child is born. O come let us adore him, Alleluia. It is always a joy to see a full church, and tonight it is especially good to welcome you, whether you are a regular attender, a first-time visitor, or a returning wanderer. This is a night for welcome, for home-coming, for … READ MORE…
Today is Mary’s day — Mary the bold teenager, the peasant, the Virgin, the God-bearer. What delights me again and again about the Incarnation is that it is absolutely ridiculous, utterly absurd, and inevitably and undeniably human and fleshy and messy. It begins with the Annunciation, which is like the Queen of England arriving by … READ MORE…
Heidi Neumark is a Lutheran pastor and writer who says she loves Advent because it is a season that reflects how she feels much of the time. As we anticipate and reflect on the coming of Christ on so many levels — in the nativity, in our hearts, in a future completion of all creation … READ MORE…
Every year I look forward to the Sundays in Advent when we are confronted by John the Baptist, the wild man of the New Testament. There’s something refreshingly unvarnished about John, with his camel-skin coat and his tent-revival preaching. Of all the Gospel writers, Luke tells us the most about John, filling in the miraculous … READ MORE…
I invite you to close your eyes and imagine yourself in a room in your house at night. Do whatever you can to make it as dark as possible — shut the door, close the curtains tightly — and now light a match. Watch its flaring flame, its flickering dance along the walls, and its … READ MORE…
I was in high school when it was suggested that I should have my eyes tested for glasses. The doctor told me that I was near sighted. Not only that, I also have astigmatism. That means that things far away were not only blurry, there were two of them. So I got my first pair … READ MORE…