Advent 2022 begins Sunday, November 27th. Angels. Every year, when they were little, my children donned cardboard wings in the Christmas pageant. And through the centuries gilded angel wings have graced a bazillion Christmas cards. Angels. Pretty, poetic symbols. Anachronistic theology of the Middle Ages. Superstition in the scientific age. Right? Yet every Sunday we confess that “We…
I first discovered Dave Grohl listening to the nineties music of Nirvana. After a shambolic academic record — and to his parents’ horror (his mom taught public school in Fairfax County for 30 years!) — Dave quit school his junior year to rock it out playing drums in local punk bands. And at the tender…
From Parishioner Margaret Wohler I visited my son this June in New York City while he was at NYU for a summer workshop. He had housing in Greenwich Village next to Washington Square park. It was nice and mostly fun but he had mixed feelings: every day, multiple times a day, he was confronted by…
Read more What the Fortunate Owe the Unfortunate: “Hard Times Come Again No More”
One day, I was listening to NPR. The program host was interviewing people who had had profound spiritual experiences that they could not explain and that had changed them for life. The story that I remembered most was told by a 60-year old woman who described what happened to her as a 14-year-old girl on…
Who Do You Say That I Am? Lenten Series Post #7 In Matthew: 16, Mark: 8 and Luke: 9, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do the people say I am?” He followed that question with, “Who do you think I am?” It’s sort of strange, these questions, because clearly Jesus knew who he was. Still…
This week I went to visit my mom at Goodwin House, Bailey’s Crossroads. My mother is 91 years old and very functional, both somatically and socially, but she has no short term memory. She has lived on the 3rd floor Assisted Living unit for the past five years. My mom has experienced decline, certainly, as she…
“Summertime and the Livin’ is…” George Gershwin Get set for the largest disco on the East Coast to let loose in the trees above your yard this month. The biggest boy band on earth is cranking its amp to over 100 decibels and will be singing at the top of their boom boxes all day…
“Holed Up for a Year, I Hope…” Holy Week short story from Kristin Neubauer Illustrated by Margaret Wohler Jenny steadied herself with her left hand as she squatted among the rubble. With her right hand, she tried to push aside a slab of siding jammed against the remains of the patio table. She’d taken off…
Regardless of how historic this past year has been, I didn’t keep a quarantine journal. What would have been the point? Every day was exactly like the last one: a few thousand more Americans dead and nowhere for the living to go. While my family, and general situation, were fine, I still had lingering blue…
Note: Kristin Neubauer’s story is a work of creative nonfiction, based on the experience of Maya Husseini, Lebanon’s premiere stained glass artist. Illustration by Margaret Wohler. Tick. The second hand on Maya’s watch moves six-tenths of a millimeter to the right, the click of the cogs lost in the space of cathedral’s soaring arches. In…
Emmanuel Voices 
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