Wing….Folk

Wing….Folk

In an odd twist, we won’t be focusing upon today’s Feast Day in the Episcopal Church’s saint calendar, but today’s observance proffers a great launching pad!  Today we commemorate Timothy and Titus, companions and disciples to Saint Paul who both became bishops and...
I Am Jesus

I Am Jesus

One week after the first church pillar, Peter, comes the other twin Christian tower.  Today we mark the Conversion of Saint Paul the Tardy Apostle, Apostle to the Gentiles, and perhaps among the primary reasons any of us are Christian at all.  Oddly, he only has two...
Repent and Believe

Repent and Believe

Today’s Third Sunday After the Epiphany readings are brief, compressed and summary in their liturgical form but epic in inference to our lives.  Let’s take them in turn for our devotional today… I am beyond convinced the Book of Jonah is NOT a usual prophetic book. ...
O Little Town

O Little Town

Not all saints inhabit distant antiquity.  For Episcopalians, today is the Feast Day of Phillips Brooks, Priest, Bishop, Homilist and Hymnist.  Brooks belongs to the 19th century, 1835-1893, a period of sustained turbulence for mainline American Protestantism.  He was...
Paraclete

Paraclete

Elemental.  Raw.  Energetic.  God’s dynamic, energizing, and powerful presence, personal and palpable, whom scripture most often refers to as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God or simply the Spirit.  We explored a bit of the Spirit in the closing days of Eastertide,...
One Solitary life

One Solitary life

Doctor James Allen Francis (1864-1928) penned perhaps the greatest summation of Jesus’ life in several hundred years.  Allen was born one hundred years before me in Nova Scotia, called to the pastorate at 21 years old (I like him already!).  He served New...
Let Me Be Clear

Let Me Be Clear

Oh, gwwaaaddd…if I had a dime for every time in the last six months we’ve heard that statement from a slightly frowning, forehead creased in earnest yet empathetic head-slightly-cocked leaning forward politician, we’d be rich!  I note that what usually follows that...
Of Apples and Eyes

Of Apples and Eyes

So there I was (this is how we start personal stories in our family) just after a very fun Christmas.  For reasons beyond the scope of this devotional space, I was full tilt towards a Personal Pity Party.  You know the PPP refrain…I’m not important to anyone, no one...
Rough Hewn

Rough Hewn

Today is the Feast Day of the Confession of Saint Peter, another of the significant saints’ days in the Incarnation cycle.  While Peter and Paul are traditionally celebrated together on June 29th, (and Paul’s Conversion is coming up in a week’s time) each receive...