16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, RCL)

At youth group and church camp, I learned to perform my own unworthiness. It took years to recognize the spiritual harm this caused.

The Bible employs many merisms, in which two contrasting words stand in for a whole spectrum. “Male and female” is one of them.

It is important to consider how others may hear these beloved words.

When I’m tempted to click “Add to cart,” I hear creation groaning.

Hope has not seen, and hope does not know.

If so, what did he mean?

What was the earthy taste of river water telling me?

When words fail, the church sings—especially on Trinity Sunday.

Christ harrows hell, and nowhere are we beyond the hand that holds that harrow.

I’m throwing in my lot with the poets and painters, the novelists and songwriters.

The stark liturgical space that Harvard Episcopal chaplain Rita Powell envisioned before COVID is now a reality.

They both resist easy answers to the problem of suffering.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the sacraments belong there.

Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us.

Struck down but not destroyed, perplexed but not forsaken