How do you tell the story of St. John’s? What is it that the community means to you? What is it all about? If someone asked you the history of the church, what would you tell them?
A poem for the New Year
Boiler Replacement Warms More than the Church Building
Salaam, Shalom, Peace— To be a pilgrim...
Rob’s Sabbatical
Seek the Welfare of the City
Jeremiah 29: 4-5,7 These verses from Jeremiah have stuck with me since we read them in church on October 13th, the Sunday before Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I’ve been thinking about what it means to be part of a larger community and how we understand our presence, here, now, in this city, on this land.
“‘Everyone’s a little broken and everyone belongs" Crowded Table
Parish Retreat 2019
Solitude
Solitude. It’s what Jesus sought after he went to the wilderness after being baptized in the River Jordan. It was what shaped the spiritual lives of the desert mothers and fathers and drew people to them. It’s often where God is able to meet us, where we encounter the love that we cannot earn, but receive through our returning and rest, quietness and trust.
Trinkets and Treasure
More recently I was introduced to the Daily Prayer book from the Corrymeela Community and among the wonderful offerings in their prayer book is The Prayer of Courage https://www.corrymeela.org/news/126/the-prayer -of-courage. The Daily Prayer Book includes 31 brief Scripture readings – a verse or two – and a prayer for that day.
Gratitude in Action
What are your three things today? This question causes me to pause. This pause is so important. Many of my days are frenetic and full to the brim with need and activity. The practice of pausing to consider and remember what I am grateful for is perhaps my most helpful spiritual practice while navigating a frenetic life in general and specifically this Fall Season at SJC.
The Practice of the Presence of God
I invite you to pause for a moment and examine how you practice the presence of God. The tendency that I hear, see and experience is that people, (myself included), look for God “somewhere out there.” Brother Lawrence reminds us that God is nearer than we might think. Psalm 139 expresses this reality well when the psalmist asks ..
Reflections & Gratitude
Parallel rows of tobacco stretched to the edge of my sightline, their giant sagging from the in-tense heat of the day. In front of me were two circles of chairs nestled between two double-wide trailers. . We grabbed plates of food and took our seats in the circles. The thirteen young folks who gave a week of their summer to travel to North Carolina on a Mission Trip interspersed with the mi-grant farmworkers who had invited us into their home.
‘Behold, I am doing a new thing...’ Isaiah 43:19
I had completely forgotten how overwhelming life is in a household with a new baby, especially if the baby is the first baby born into that household! I write from London where I am spending time with my lovely new granddaughter, Ada, and her terrific parents (very true, even if I am biased!). Ada is five weeks old, and life is a bit more settled, until it isn’t.