Almost two years ago, we welcomed our second daughter, Cana into the world. We have gotten countless questions about the choice of her name and we find ourselves telling the story about the wedding in Cana over and over again. Sometimes the repetition is annoying. But mostly, retelling the story...
This past week I have been thinking a lot about death. It’s probably a function of being a priest, but death is ever a part of my journey. Many days I can avoid thinking about it. But I imagine that is not really what God wants. Just to prove the point, I find that deaths usually come in...
This weekend I finally saw “The Intouchables,” a 2011 film based on the true story of a French, wealthy quadriplegic who hires a man convicted of petty theft to be his caregiver. The quadriplegic, Philippe, has been through many caregivers. He is a widower who lost the use of most of...
Our Vestry and Parish just completed a Mutual Ministry Review – a time to reflect on the health of our congregation and to strategize about how to move toward greater health and wholeness. There was a lot of positive feedback in the survey indicating the ways in which we have grown and...
This Monday our parish walked in our local Memorial Day Parade. I did a lot of cajoling to get our parishioners out among the community that day. But I must admit, that morning all I wanted to do was stay in bed. I had experienced some sleepless nights with the little one, Monday is normally my...
As Mother’s Day approaches, I face it with my usual dread. Though there are so many mothers that we can and should honor (I love you, Mom!!), there are so many people for whom this is a hard day. I am at the stage in life when many of my friends are having children. There are the sonogram...
In the last couple of weeks we have seen quite a lot of change in our infant. She is finally getting up on her knees to crawl instead of doing her “commando drag.” She is pulling up to a standing position and happily standing for a while. She is trying and enjoying new solid foods...
This week I had one of “those” days. I had a funeral at 10 a.m., which I had specifically scheduled early in the day so that I could run over to Clergy Day with the diocesan clergy, hoping to fit in a few hours with colleagues. Of course, the day before it snowed and iced, and the...
This Advent has been a both-and experience for me this year. There have been some incredibly joyful moments: watching my daughter’s excitement about picking a Christmas tree, reading devotionals from our Advent calendar and enjoying my daughter’s insightful comments, and...
Maybe it is because today is my birthday or maybe it is because we just lost a dear family member to cancer, but life and death have been on my mind a lot lately. The funny thing about being a priest is that those two things are almost always held in tension. In the course of one week, I can...
