I was never blind like Bartimaeus, who we read of in our Gospel today, but I was born with a strabismus, or crossed eyes, which made my vision very weak. Many of my early memories involve going to pediatric ophthalmologists and children’s hospitals for surgeries. After multiple surgeries, my left eye became strong but my…
Today’s readings are linked by a couple common themes that are still well known to us today – fear of others and the related fear of scarcity. Our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospel both tell us about our own fears and how God sees our world very differently. In our Gospel passage,…
Despite having seen thousands of TV commercials in my lifetime, I have a memory etched into my mind of standing in front of the TV late in my high school years and watching a commercial. This one was calling for donations to help starving children, and it showed heartbreaking pictures similar to many I am…
I went to high school at a small private Christian school. As with any school, there were budget constraints that meant that some textbooks were not updated very often. One of these was ninth grade geography – I think it was assumed that geography didn’t change much and so it was usually passed over when…
The first time I proclaimed the Gospel as a deacon, it was in Spanish. In worship, proclaiming the Gospel is the most visible role of a deacon. Carrying out the Gospel book and reading it among the people symbolizes the call to the church to carry out into the world the good news that the…
That which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt; He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess; This is how Alfred, Lord Tennyson begins a section of In Memoriam (124) in which he wrestles with the seeming silence of God during tragedy, a struggle that seems…
O God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, and take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen. Growing up, I do not remember a time when I was told that my older sister was adopted and I was my parents’ biological child. It was just a…