Dear Friends in Christ, “ . . . are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?” Jesus says these words (Mark 14:37) to his friends in the garden of Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion. He also says them to us, this week. It is tempting to sleep through Holy…
Dear Friends in Christ, I will never send you an email asking you to go out and buy gift cards. But it’s interesting to see what happens when someone else uses my name to do so. Unfortunately, scammers frequently impersonate me and the other clergy. They send phishing emails—emails intended to lure the…
Dear Friends in Christ, This coming Sunday bears many names—Laetare Sunday (from the first word of the Latin introit, meaning “rejoice”), Rose Sunday (from the special pink vestments worn in some churches), or Mothering Sunday (from the tradition of returning to visit the church of one’s baptism, or the “mother” church). This year,…
Dear Friends in Christ, Our altar has become a parable for me during this season of Lent. You have probably noticed that we don’t have flowers on the altar in Lent. You may have noticed that we don’t have a lot of candles, either—only two instead of the usual eight. What is…
Dear Friends in Christ, Last week, I wrote to you about how we travel through Lent together. This week, I want to speak to the individual journey. I know that many of you have adopted your own personal Lenten disciplines—ways of fasting or disciplines of study or service. I want to highlight three…
Dear Friends in Christ, “When you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile.” This quote comes from one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Anne Shirley. (I suppose technically it’s from Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables.) These words may not be biblical, but I think they speak…
Dear Friends in Christ, I want to write to you this week about Federal workers. This is not a letter of pastoral care—although such a letter would be warranted, given the uncertainty and struggles that our Federal workforce faces right now. This is instead a letter of gratitude. I want to name, celebrate,…
Dear Friends in Christ, Last Saturday, your vestry spent the day together. They did some of the ordinary work of parish life, talking about our facilities and our budget. But they also did more extraordinary work—the kind of work only possible when there is time for extended conversation, where there is space for the…
Dear Friends in Christ, Do you remember the first time you came to Grace Church? For some of you, that day was very recent; for others, it has been decades. A very few of you cannot remember your first time because you were a baby carried in someone else’s arms. Most of…
Dear Friends in Christ, C.S. Lewis wrote, “your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Sunday allows us to live out that truth twice. The first time is at our morning worship, when we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation, more commonly known as Candlemas. The day commemorates when the infant…