Faith in Progress

I am not a fan of bugs.  If it's a ladybug or a cricket -- something that seems good and sympathetic and harmless - I might try to get it outside safely.  But most insects do not meet with that kind of good will.  And unfortunately, with the good weather has come an infestation of all kinds of creatures at our house.  Most prevalent are ants, who seem to prove Darwin's concept of survival of the fittest.  The more I kill, the tinier and faster the next generation seems to be.  And there are the stink bugs, who are incredibly slow and stupid, but if I don't catch them just right in my wad of toilet paper make the worst smell.  When my husband sees me hunting these bugs he starts to sing, "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all."  Last week it got even more exciting.  My daughter Sophia had a friend over to play and the two of them were playing dress up in the basement.  Suddenly th

Yesterday I headed back to the church where I grew up, Christ Church in Columbia, Maryland, to preach as part of their 200 year anniversary.  Here's my sermon... April 18, 2010 Christ Church, Columbia, MD John 21:1-19 I feel like I’m back home this morning. This is the church I grew up in. From the time I was a little girl until the time I headed off to college, this is where I came with my family pretty much every Sunday. Sometimes I’d try to get out of it, but mostly my parents insisted. So I was a Sunday school regular with the poor teachers who unwittingly volunteered to be with us. And then one of the core members of the youth group. As teens, we came from every high school around but most of us had been together so long in church we were a force to be reckoned with, although perhaps not a terribly spiritual bunch. I was a frequent acolyte, sitting up front worrying about whether I’d get up at the right time to do the ceremonial hand washing for the priest. I loved the