A Psalm in the time of COVID-19 My heart has no joy, O Lord, For it is weighed down with imprecations. I struggle to feel anything but contempt For those who spread lies, who conceal the truth, Who reject the opportunities to help others. I lament the truth of history, Wherein people have been treated… Read More
Sunday Prayer: prayer and praising
Rabbi … Teacher …
your wisdom is as great
as your compassion.
Even when people come to you … Read More
RevGalBookPals: Living Brave by Shannon Dingle
Content warning: Child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, traumatic loss. In her introduction to Living Brave: Lessons From Hurt, Lighting the Way to Hope, Shannon Dingle tells her readers, This is not the book I intended to write. Dingle had completed a first draft of a book about surviving and naming the truth of a childhood… Read More
RevGalBookPals: The Night Lake
Content warning: infant death, suicide, alcoholism In the middle of my own present stress and grief, I am the kind of person who needs a dispatch from someone who has been in the same place and can report on the lay of the land. Even if we are not on the same path or in… Read More
Saturday Prayer: Scattered and broken
Oh Holy One, We are broken and scattered. Our hearts are crushed. We see the debris of lives before us, tossed about with indifference and violence. We see the carnage of prejudice and bigotry. We are grieving. We stare at the broken bodies, the tearful families, the aches that cannot be eased, the posturing and… Read More
Friday Prayer
For those who are out of words for praying- Those who stare off into the middle distance, too tired for sentences or sense. Those whose grief is too deep for anything but sobs and deafening silence. Those who have poured out for others with very little available to fill themselves.Those who have deconstructed lies they were told… Read More
Friday Prayer
There are things that happen that are unthinkable, but not unimaginable. We are able to imagine them, but we push them away because we do not want to think about them. What is unimaginable is living after the unthinkable. Holy and merciful God, we pray with broken hearts for all who are living- breath by… Read More
Pastoral is Political: Near the Cross Was Mary Weeping
I’ve found myself drawn to images of the Marys at the foot of the cross. Death, particularly the death of someone you love, is hard to watch. I suppose it is a natural human instinct to look away or to hide from the grief and horror before you. It takes a spiritual hardiness to remain… Read More
Friday Festival: Connections, Broken and Whole
Our bloggers are guiding our minds to the connections of the heart this week. Turning from weariness to gratitude, Kristin Berkey-Abbott notices a parallel between herself and the living things in the garden, “The milkweed is blooming this week–these are plants that have been eaten back to bare stalks several times since I bought them… Read More
Narrative Lectionary: Permission to Lament (Ruth 1:1-17)
Lament has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I carry it deep within my heart and right on the edge from where my tears pool. I feel it in my spirit, in the tightness of all of my muscles and within the stiffness of my too often clenched jaw. Maybe it’s because I… Read More
