World history swirls about us as we begin Lent today. I have the sense that what has been happening over the past few years, particularly over the past week, will define the world that the next generation of leaders will manage. We are watching the atrocities in the Ukraine with horror. We are facing the accelerating rate of Climate Change, And the pandemic, though waning, is still part of our lives. It is easy enough […]
I’ve wasted some afternoons binge watching the TV series Ancient Aliens on Hulu over the past few years. It seems like a harmless “what if” exercise. And it’s fun when in a particular episode I’m introduced to some new site or artifact that I’d not heard of before. But I do notice that if I know something about what’s being presented, the information shared is not very robust and often weirdly wrong. In an article […]
Susan McWilliams Barndt has a brief essay posted on the new site “Current” that talks about the implications of new sociological data showing that Americans are moving less and putting down deeper roots than they have in decades: Rooting for the Future – Current: Because we know that the more people move, the more they tend to be focused on their individual selves rather than on their communities, favor “duty-free” relationships, have less of a […]
In this past year, it seems we’ve had the longest Lent ever. And now we stand ready to start Lent again before it feels like the previous one is over. But this Lent is different. It brings with it a promise that we can walk with Jesus and participate in hastening the redemption of our community. In Rhode Island the government is choosing a different strategy to vaccinate the population. Other states are working to […]
David Blight, author of the magisterial biography of Fredrick Douglass, explains how we may be seeing the unfolding of a new cultural/political movement in this moment: David Blight: How Trumpism May Endure – The New York Times: The important Lost Causes in history have all been at heart compelling stories about noble defeats that were, with time, forged into political movements of renewal: the French after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the profound need […]
Each story of Christmas is filled with meaning and carries messages that speak to from across the centuries. This year, on this second Sunday in Christmas Season, we hear the story of the Flight into Egypt – how Joseph fled Herod’s wrath that a rival had been born. And this year we can reflect on the contrast between the earthly ruler and the heaven sent king.
We finally draw near to the threshold of the Feast of the Incarnation. But before we join Mary and Joseph beside the manager in Bethlehem, we need to take a moment to understand the miracle of Jesus’ birth, and what his two natures, human and divine, mean for us today. And while we wonder about that, we can wonder too about how we can be like Mary. How can we make God incarnate for others?
One of my favorite events each December is attending (and participating) in the Service of Lessons and Carols in the chapel at St. George’s School here in Rhode Island. My first one was soon after I was ordained the Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island and it’s become our family tradition each year since. This year, with the school rightly limiting people’s access to the hilltop it wasn’t possible for people from the community to participate. […]
There’s a reconnection with Holy Scripture during this time of quarantine. People are joining to read the Office on Sundays, and clergy and lay people are gathering online to read the Daily Office in record numbers. All that scripture needs to have some sort of interpretive framework. James Stambaugh, writing on the site “Earth and Altar” delivers. He sets out a proper Barthian style hermeneutic and grounds it in the historical method of interpretation that […]
We recognize that congregational worship has high risk of spreading COVID-19 and could jeopardize the safety and well being of our congregants and our clergy members. All of our traditions prioritize the care of the most vulnerable as a cornerstone of our values. We are ever grateful for the right to freely worship and know that with it comes the responsibility to safeguard the greater good. We yearn to be worshiping together in our traditional […]
Entangled States 