Faith in Progress

Lent 1, Year B February 26, 2012 Genesis 8:8-17 Depending on what sort of person you are, you might create two different headlines from the story of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood from Genesis. If you are a glass half-empty sort of person it would be something like “God Destroys World” and if you are a glass half-full sort of person it might be something like “God Gives World Another Chance.” But neither headline would be complete. Read one way, this story of the flood is a horrendous one about evil and punishment. With only one family excepted, the entire population of the earth is evil and no good. A horde of animals along with this one family are holed up in a dark, smelly, crowded boat on what must have been a scary ride on a raging sea. Every other person and creature is drowned in the waters sent by an angry and punishing God. And then it finally ends and they are sent out to start all over again. To create houses, forage for food, forever reminded of this horrible catastro...

Epiphany 6, Year B Mark 1:40-45 My husband and I are political junkies, so we’ve been watching the recent Republican debates and turmoil with great interest. There’s always somebody putting his foot in his mouth over something. One recent gaffe was when Mitt Romney asserted last week that he is “not concerned about the very poor" because they have an "ample safety net.” He added that if the net is “broken” he’d “fix it”, but that was too little too late for the firestorm that met him in response. It is outrageous to be unconcerned about the very poor when 15% (or more than 46 million people in this country) are living in poverty, which means making less than $22,350 for a family of 4. Can you imagine living on that? It is outrageous to be unconcerned about the very poor when you take a stroll down the less attractive parts of Route 1 and see people carrying all their belongings in trash bags. The safety net” that Mitt relies on so heavily isn’t close to enough. More than...

This past weekend, we took a group of middle and high schoolers from St. Aidan's to New York City.  It was a quick trip - left Friday at noon and returned Saturday at 9 p.m.  But full of adventure.  We arrived in time for dinner and ate at a pizza place across from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  I'm not sure if it was really the best pizza in the world, or if I was just starving and thrilled to have arrived safely. After dinner, we checked into the Cathedral for its Nightwatch program, which is basically a lock-in.  There were about 80 youth from Connecticut, NY, Maryland, and Virginia, some Episcopal and some not.  They started us out with some ice-breakers.  (This is our group watching the Cowboys, Ninjas, Bears tournament -- lock rock, paper, scissors but more of a full-body experience.) They had a great band of young and very talented musicians that led music for worship.  We started with a singing downstairs in the gym, where we wo...