When she was eight years old, my niece Audrey asked me the very important theological question, “Does God have pets?” Now, she had an ulterior motive for this question, as she was angling to be allowed to get a dog (this was before Penny, and then Hugo, came into her life!) – but nevertheless, it is an intriguing question. I responded, “Yes, I think WE are all God’s pets.”....
Today I came across this “Thought for the Day” on a poetry website (https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com): Don’t resent the work. It gives you strength to stand whole and silent before the Mystery. - Ivan M. Granger Granger may be talking about a more significant kind of work, but I immediately thought of all the little things that I resent doing each day. This is the stuff I “have to” do, the “shoulds” -- much of it just the tedious things in work and life that we all have to attend to. Things like those emails I have to return, the doctor’s appointment I should make, and the research I need to do in order to fix my misbehaving computer....
The comedian John Oliver addressed the recent mass shootings before his regular show aired Sunday night. He began like this: “When it comes to gun control, I know it can feel like everything’s been said before. In fact, even pointing out “everything’s been said before” has been said before. In fact, even pointing out the fact that “ ‘everything’s been said before’ has been said before” has been said before. But while the depressingly familiar numbness that you may be currently feeling can help you handle the pain in the short term, in the long term it can actually be a real problem because unless something hurts as much as it’s supposed to, nothing gets done about it.”....
Happy Summer! I am actually on vacation -- I wrote this meditation last week before I left. I hope I'm having a fun and relaxing time! And I hope that you will get some time off as well this summer, even if it is just a long weekend or two....
Starting this past Monday, the Church entered its longest season of the liturgical year -- often called Ordinary time. Technically speaking, it isn’t actually a season, but rather the time between the major seasons of the church calendar. The longest stretch of Ordinary time reaches from the Monday after the Feast of Pentecost (June 10 this year) all the way until the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent....
As I write today I am at the annual Priests’ Conference of the Diocese. Most of the priests of the Diocese of New York have gathered together with our bishops for three days of fellowship, education, and relaxation. This year we are in the Poconos and it is beautiful, if a bit on the rainy side!We have had a guest speaker named Jonathan Merritt. You might remember an opinion piece he wrote last year for the Sunday Week in Review section of the New York Times titled “It’s Getting Harder to Talk About God,” and his most recent book is called “Learning to Speak God from Scratch.”...
As you receive this meditation, we will have just concluded our Good Friday liturgy. In our Book of Common Prayer, the three services at the end of Holy Week -- Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter on Saturday night - are conceived as one long worship service over three days. That means that from the Good Friday liturgy, which ends appropriately in silence, to the beginning of the Vigil with the kindling of the new fire in the dark, there is a long stretch of more than a day when we are still technically within a worship service....
As many of you know, I was in Phoenix last weekend attending my friend Jennifer Reddall’s consecration as Bishop of Arizona, and it was truly a blessed event. It was blessed not just because Bishop Reddall is now the first female bishop of Arizona. Or because she is currently one of only ten women who are the primary bishop of one of our 111 dioceses in the Episcopal church. Or because the ceremony included an amazing ritual to create sacred space led by Native American women, one of whom is also an Episcopal priest. Or because the music was a delightful combination of beloved Anglican and Spanish-language hymns (helped by an 80-member choir and a mariachi band, of course). Or because the celebratory performance by former “lost boys” from Sudan who have found an Episcopal church to call home in their new land. Or the vibrant presence of our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. It was blessed because of the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit. For a sermon in her days as rector of Church of the Epiphany here in New York, +Jennifer once did some research on doves as an image of the Holy Spirit.....
Today, Friday, January 25, is the day we remember the conversion of Paul. The story of Paul being suddenly struck from his horse by a blinding light while on the road to Damascus is immediately familiar to us, from the several bible passages that describe it (Acts 9:1-22, 22:6-21, and 26:9-21; Galatians 1:11-24). Even if you don’t remember anything else about the story, you are likely to be able to visualize one of the many paintings of Paul’s experience on the road - one of the most famous is by Caravaggio (click here to view).
The Reverend Susan E. HillMerry Christmas!This is a season of new beginnings. We are in Christmastide (remember we celebrate the birth of
