Faith in Progress

December 23, 2018 Luke 1:39-55 I’m generally the first to arrive in the office on weekday mornings.  In fact, in the winter darkness lately, I’ve been picking my outfits by the light of my cell phone and tiptoeing out of the house in the semi-darkness so as not to wake up my kids.  There are some downsides to this.  Like, one day last week I arrived to find there was paint all over my sweater.  But most of the time, the benefits are greater.  Most importantly, I get to be present with my kids after school -- but also I fly down the GW Parkway with no traffic and nothing but green lights in Old Town, and arrive to limitless parking options and uncanny quiet in the office.  I’ve grown to love the office at that hour.  There is something sort of sacred about the quiet darkness. On Monday this week, I began my day as usual.  I made my way here as the sun rose over the river and got situated in my office.  Since I was on to preach today, I took the opportunity of quiet to start looki

December 12, 2018 Wednesday Eucharist Thomas Merton (December 10) I feel like I won the lottery this week! Sometimes when I’m on to preach for a Wednesday Eucharist I go looking at the possible saints to choose from and am not terribly inspired.  Sometimes they are people I haven’t heard of, or people whose saintliness feels like a bit of a stretch, or people so far in the past that I have trouble relating to them.  (Though I should admit -- thanks be to God -- that even in those weeks I do end up finding some nugget that speaks to me and inspires me, so the exercise is not in vain.) But not this week.  This week there was no question in my mind who to choose. Thomas Merton, of course!  Blessedly, his feast day was December 10, making my preaching gig today a piece of cake.  Thomas Merton, if you haven’t heard of him (which I would have trouble believing) was a 20th Century Trappist monk and one of the most-influential spiritual writers of recent times. There are tw

December 2, 2018 Luke 21:25-36 Yikes. A parishioner at my previous church used to talk about how sometimes she would hear some shocking reading, and then the priest would announce “The Gospel of the Lord!” and everyone would respond “Praise to you Lord Christ!”  And she would just look around in disbelief at the people sitting there, apparently undisturbed by what they’d just heard. She said sometimes she wanted to shake us all and shout out “WHAT? How can that possibly be good news?” I’m sure this would have been one of those readings. Here we are, minding our own business on this first weekend of Advent.  We’re looking forward to Christmas, and getting ready for it. We are starting to be surrounded by beauty and celebration. The Scottish Christmas walk this weekend.  Twinkling lights turning Old Town into a fairy world. Making pretty Advent wreaths to adorn our tables with candlelight. Starting to hear Christmas music on the radio. And we come in here, expec