No Lenten devotional would be complete without visiting the pioneering, foundational Twelve Steps of the personal recovery movement. The theological influence immediately evident derives from an Episcopal priest, Father Sam Shoemaker, as we saw yesterday. I present these transformational elements of any recovery program not because I believe we are
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Lots of “Re’s” in our world right now….rebuild, reframe, refocus, to name a few. It is undoubtedly a season of recovery. I’m finding it helpful to look towards experts in personal recovery for wisdom in how to be in moments like this. Those experts are the anonymous heroines and heroes
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Dear readers, in this penultimate daily devotional, we close our Epiphanytide season. We also step through a major liminal threshold as we pass from the Advent/Incarnation/Epiphany focus of our Christian liturgical calendar to the Lent/Easter/Pentecost focus. Both foci are essentially critical to a grounded, Trinitarian and properly Christological Christian faith
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Happy Last Sunday of Epiphany ya’ll! Seriously, that’s the official prayer book designation for today! By tradition we close Epiphanytide with the greatest Epiphanic moment of Jesus’ ministry short of the cross and empty tomb, His Transfiguration!! But since we’ve sufficiently explored the big Fig in some detail earlier, let’s
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It has been my honor to introduce you to many varied Christian personages throughout these reflections and devotionals, many you already know at least by reputation. It is my honor to introduce you to our last saint, one you may not know, but one of our most significant. Today marks
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Late last year I saw a friend in the Homestead Court Club weight room. As he was leaving I said casually, “Take care. See you back soon!” His reply? “No, not in here for awhile!” Curious, I asked him why. His answer fascinated me. He explained he was initiating a
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All Saints enjoys some spectacular hymnody! Two of my favorites are I Sing a Song of the Saints of God and For All the Saints. Lesbia Lesley Scott (1898-1986) penned Sing to entertain and teach her three young children more about All Saints Day. Evidently it was a lifetime
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I’d like to close our liturgical calendar circle by re-visiting the final significant holidays of the Christian year we missed previously. Come fall harvest time, as agricultural societies the world over frantically harvest their crops and autumnal leaves adorn forests everywhere, the church also reaps a harvest. Long before American
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This descriptor appears in Holy Scripture some 144 times. 6 of those usages involve arms. Others modify walls or other dividers either physical or spiritual. But this descriptor by far is reserved for modifying only one essential element of human existence. Can anyone guess? Yep….it’s the heart. Hearts being sundered,
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Anyone who knows me well knows my disinclination for late 1960’s/early 1970’s American pop music, some of which tragically made its way into the Episcopal church of my childhood. While Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind performed by earnest young south Tampa mothers learning to play the guitar was scarring enough,
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