When I first agreed to preach today, I thought, sure I can do a children’s homily for youth Sunday, I have taught kids for a long time. Then I remembered I had to do both services, which meant an adult message as well. With the children, we will talk about what Jesus means when He…
Read more Salt & Light
Good morning, and thank you for being here. There’s a lot going on in your life, if it’s anything like ours, and it’s great that we all made the decision to gather here today. I want to thank Chuck and Joani for graciously inviting me to speak to you today about what the story of…
Read more Hiking to the Cross & Climbing Trees
There is no better hymn to sing on the Feast of St. Francis then Hymn #400 from the 1982 hymnal. All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voices, let us sing, Alleluia, alleluia! Bright burning sun with golden beams, Pale silver moon that gently gleams, O praise him, O praise him, Alleluia,…
Read more Preaching to the Birds (A Homily for Everyone)
I am no Hemingway… But like the Old Man of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, I have long had a problematic relationship with large bodies of water. Sea water and pool water. As a child – by the sea, by the beautiful sea – my fair, freckled skin would fry to a crisp. Bright red…
Read more Old Woman and the Sea
“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20 Growing up Sanctified Brethren, for a young Garrison Keillor two or three would have to be enough. His older self reports: “We met in Uncle Al’s and Aunt Flo’s living room with plain folding chairs…
Read more Working at the Hospitality House
When I was growing up, there was a pecking order at the Peacock house that played out in different ways. It was sounded out every time my mom called for one of the six of us. She would rattle off our names from the oldest to the youngest: Maureen, Timmy, Joani, Bernie Clare. Joseph. One of us…
Read more Coffee Hour in the Kingdom
I apologize. I am going to talk about my dad again today but please, I’d be grateful if you would cut me a little slack. And I do wonder if my dad knows somewhere up there in heaven that he has become a star sermon illustration in his daughter’s homilies. Maybe my dad is best…
Read more The Exhausted Great Physician
Good Morning, everyone! My name is Kim Scott and I am a high school French teacher at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School and also a care team member for Emmanuel’s refugee support ministry. As an educator, I am so fortunate in that I can teach my students French, and also have the opportunity every…
Read more Three Degrees of Separation
Partying like it was 1999 – which it was – I spent a little sliver of my sabbatical from St. Luke’s at Venice Beach. I stayed with my new age, hipster, therapist friend Carey. We went rollerblading. We got our hair braided into a thousand little braids. We got our picture taken with a few…
Read more The Spiritual Deployment of the Semicolon
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…
Read more Profound Experiences
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