Remembering her own mountaintop journeys prompts Martha Spong to reflect on the mystery of the Transfiguration. She poses an interesting question about what the disciples – and we – perceive. “In this era of propaganda and marketing, social media and political campaigns, our perceptions are being messed with all the time. What are we noticing? Has truth changed? How… Read More
Friday Festival: (Re)Gaining Perspective
This week has been an especially difficult one for me. I have watched the world – and people – around me swing wildly from madness to cruelty and back again. I have struggled and failed to keep from getting caught up in the craziness. As I began reading blogs this week, I realized that I… Read More
Friday Festival: Artistic Ventures
Lately, I’ve been spending more time on my artwork, specifically my woodburning. I tend to give myself a tough time when allocating more time on this artwork instead of my writing. But after long days at the church, this type of creation feeds my soul as I feel as if I’m using another part of… Read More
Friday Festival: A last visit
Reading through the blogs in our RevGalBlogPals community is like visiting with friends. This week, we take a ride with Kim at Sandpiper’s Thoughts and adjust our Expectations. I was riding the elevator this afternoon. There are expectations about elevator protocol, aren’t there? Are you like me, and I suspect like many other people, who… Read More
Friday Festival: Turning the Corner into a New Year
It’s not just one year ending and another beginning. This year there is the added impact of a new decade. When we write the date, this year we need to retrain our muscle memory to write two different digits instead of just one. The new year was on the minds of a number of our… Read More
Friday Festival: The Other Side of Christmas
Like every other pastor, I struggle with the Christmas Eve sermon. Having spent the year with church members standing by a graveside, or sitting in a claustrophobic hospital consult room, or handing out tissues when there are no words, I wonder what to say when I look into their eyes on Christmas Eve. The good… Read More
Friday Festival: Conversations with friends
Here at the Manse, we are counting down the days to Christmas and checking the weather forecast. The wind has been a little too high for the Christmas dragon with moving wings and his companion, so we have piles of fabric in our yard. There’s always something wistful about these few days, particularly in the… Read More
Friday Festival: Advent Introspection
Advent invites us to introspection. We consider the year as it winds to an end, we consider the resolutions we so optimistically made eleven months ago (if we even remember them), we consider how we hope to move forward as we prepare to turn yet another page on the calendar. Many of our bloggers this week… Read More
Friday Festival: The spaces we inhabit
At the end of a week full of media input, a busy work schedule juggling tasks even more varied than usual, and with a day off full of appointments ahead, I’m mindful of the spaces we inhabit. Sometimes we have control over our own environments, but more often not. This week, our bloggers take us… Read More
Friday Festival: Dawn and Dusk
Shorter days are coming in some parts of the world, while others are finding longer, sunnier days. In the U.S., I find this time of year hard, as the dark and the cold take a mental toll. I found sustenance in our bloggers’ reflections on light, new dawns, and the beauty of twilight. A new… Read More
