With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More

With the click of a mouse…

As I was putting the finishing touches on some hopeful, forward pointing thoughts for 2021, planned for release on the Feast of the Epiphany, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol began.  That event, the culmination of forces at play in our world for much longer than an election cycle, happened just six blocks from my home.  Needless to say, the events of January 6 and the continued tension in which we are living change some of what I had written, but not all.  And so, now for some amended thoughts about the turning of the calendar, because, in so many ways, January 1, 2021, was hardly the first day of…
Read More

People, look East…the search for hope and wonder

People look East -- the first words of a familiar hymn often sung during Advent.  I'm having trouble leaving the words of this hymn confined within their traditional time frame.  The meaning of time has certainly changed for many of us these past months, and if 2020 changes anything, those changes call me to embrace the hope and preparation of Advent as a lifestyle, not a season. People look East, the time is near. Yesterday, as I rose at an hour all too early and all too cold for the end of December, again, I made my morning calculation -- which way will I walk?  Will I head to the…
Read More

Le Noël des Oiseaux: Recording by Susan Sevier & Cheryl Branham

Usually, right at this moment, I am at one of many locations in my neighborhood, outside.  Walking.  Rain or shine, cold or heat, I have been walking.  Looking at the sunrise, watching the clouds, observing the few other socially-distancing dog walkers or runners or the occasional package pirate on a scooter streaming away with their prize. There is supposed to be snow falling outside my window right now, but I live in the great DC Snow Hole, so what we have instead is freezing wind with the promise of freezing rain as the invisible sun moves on its invisible journey around the planet. But, in the expectation of snow, I…
Read More

Let us break bread together…

I had a plan.  Since the beginning of Pandemic Times, I have not managed to sit down and write at all.  On a good day, maybe I have strung together a few thoughts on Instagram to go with the photography practice that has helped me maintain a slight hold on the thread of life, but words?  This many?  No.  This has not been possible. A few weeks ago, though, having survived my first video choral project, feeling like there might be some music left in this tossed and tumbled old soul, I thought to myself, I'll begin a series of essays.  I'll write about different pieces of music that I've…
Read More

Goodbye, woods and water….

Take a deep breath, I tell myself.  Breathe in, the scent of those Jeffrey pines is the smell of this place.  Listen to the sharp song of those stellar jays as they hop everywhere; remember their unusual blue coloring.  Listen, look, feel -- remember it all, because you do not know when or if you will ever return.  You see,  I have a long day of anonymous travel ahead of me, but first, I have a couple of hours to sit and savor the peace and quiet of this forest on the beautiful blue lake in the Sierras before I  join the moving masses driving west and south on I-80…
Read More

Baptism by bubbles

Water. Warm marble.  More water.  Bubbles...lots of bubbles.  And laughter.  Lots of laughter.  That was my Easter worship this year -- a most amazing remembrance of my own baptism.  I have,in fact, never been so clean.  Easter day began in a hamami in Istanbul. I have for many years been a member of an institutional church of some kind, and so involved in that community that I would never have dreamed of missing Easter worship.  Right now, though, everything is different, This year, I was travelling -- this year, I was cruising through the Aegean and the Adriatic, bringing closure to a three year journey of healing.   But as is so often the…
Read More

A Musical #TBT

Usually, if I was going to have a musical #TBT, I would post an old performance picture or video to social media and let that be.  Today, however,  I want to talk about a song -- a song from my past, a song that it seems is more foundational to everything I believe than I might have understood, even yesterday. I've been working on letting go of some things and some relationships in my life, things and people that perhaps I have held too close for too long.  Psychologists and theologians often agree that holding too tightly  to (or, as I like to say, making an idol of...) anything is…
Read More

A Good Friday Meditation, Pt. 2: I Crucified Thee

My emotions around the images and stories we link to Good Friday are complicated at best. That is why over and over again, words are not sufficient for me:  I must turn to music.  And while the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," speaks to the complex dance between sorry and love that is our human response to the life of Jesus, in particular the events at the end of his incarnated life,  it is Johann Heerman's Herzliebster Jesu  ( 1630) that speaks to the incredible guilt we can feel in our human failure to see the living God before us, each and every day. We know Heerman's fifteen…
Read More

The days between…

Just before Christmas Day , I was lucky enough to enjoy the evening at President Washington's home, Mount Vernon, and to be there for the first (probably to become annual) Christmas Grand Illuminations.  It was a great deal of fun, overcrowded as most such events are in the Washington area, but the evening was just cold enough to feel of the season but not so cold as to be painful (particularly thanks to my newly acquired long underwear, purchased for our trip to Colorado).  The evening was festive, the fireworks spectacular. The most interesting portion of the program, however, was the welcome offered by George and Martha...well, not really George and…
Read More

Just a thought…

Today there is sunshine and the promise of slightly warmer temperatures, but I think we would all agree that we are ready for spring. I, in particular am ready for spring as it feels to me like my winter began last June when I began the journey to have the unknown congenital defect repaired.  It has been a very long winter indeed, with only a few glimpses of sunlight along the way. One little ray of sunshine has come this last week, however, as I have prepared to work with the Chapel Team at VTS next week and as I have, of all things, worked on Church History paper.  The first offers…
Read More