July 2, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Spiritual Disciplines

I was supposed to be at the diocesan clergy retreat in Evanston this week, but I received an e-mail last Tuesday saying it had been canceled due to low turnout.  The topic of the retreat was Spiritual Disciplines as a Foundation for Life and Ministry, and I was looking forward to it, even if it was in Evanston.

The topic, though, got me thinking about spiritual disciplines in general.  Whether we realize it or not, we all have a variety of disciplines we follow in our lives – some more meaningful than others, some more rigorous than others.  One discipline we have might be getting up early in the morning to exercise or spend time in quiet prayer/meditation before the busy-ness of the day.  Maybe we have a discipline of intentional family conversations.  Or maybe that Lenten discipline you followed has stuck with you and you continue to make it part of your daily life.

There are as many spiritual practices as there are people, I would imagine.  Sometimes people get hung up about these, though.  They want to do something meaningful.  They want to do something regularly.  And they want to do it correctly.  About this last point, I remember a monk who came to lead a clergy retreat when I was in Maryland talking about this very thing.  He said, “The spiritual or prayer discipline/practice that you DO is the right one.”  The implication, of course, being that as long as you are doing something, you’re doing it correctly.

Read a chapter from the gospels each morning.  Read a chapter from the gospels each evening.  Pray through the Psalms each month (the BCP breaks the Psalms into groups that can be read/prayed morning and night).  Take some time and pray from the Daily Devotions we have available at the church.  The BCP has a list of prayers for all sorts of occasions beginning on page 810 – find a prayer there to pray daily.  Find a short, meditative prayer you can easily repeat in times of silence (I find the trisagion on the bottom of pg. 356 to be helpful).

As the Chinese proverb says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

When it comes to spiritual disciplines, start small, stay consistent, and go from there.

Blessings,

June 25, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . John the Baptist

Yesterday was the Feast Day of Saint John the Baptist.  In the Christian tradition, he is the last of the prophets before the arrival of Christ.  Christianity sees Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, and John is seen as the embodiment of the prophets pointing the way to Jesus.

He appears in all four gospels, with his birth narrative and relationship to Jesus given in Luke.  He had a large following with some of his disciples becoming followers of Jesus (see John 1:35-42).  It was his public denunciation of Herod’s immorality that eventually led to his execution.

Everything John did and said pointed toward Jesus.  This often didn’t sit well with the religious and political leaders of his day (see the aforementioned execution), and John reminds us that living and speaking for the gospel in the face social and political pressures can have dire consequences. 

We need to remember that the Gospel was written to give hope to a persecuted people.  One of its purposes is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  If the message of the Gospel doesn’t challenge us or cause us to reevaluate our priorities, we are missing (or ignoring) a large part of what it has to say.

As we remember the forerunner to Jesus, may we have the courage to follow the example of John the Baptist and, in the words of John Lewis, renowned Civil Rights activist, make “good trouble.”

Blessings,

June 18, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Juneteenth

Tomorrow is June 19 and the celebration of Juneteenth, which originated at the end of the Civil War.  On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln announced that the Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect on January 1, 1863.  On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, TX, and announced the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation – 900 days after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, 71 days after Robert E. Lee surrendered, and 24 days after the Confederate army in Texas was disbanded.

This event, unfortunately, did not lead to immediate or widespread freedom and equality for former slaves and people of color.  Jim Crow laws, the rise of the KKK, redlining, HOAs, the disparity in the GI Bill, segregation, and other policies upholding systemic racism worked to ensure that non-whites were “kept in their place” for generations – including up to today.

As we continue to struggle to live into our baptismal covenant promise “to respect the dignity of every human being,” it’s important to see where we fall short.  On the arrival of Juneteenth, I encourage to read, listen, and contemplate some of these words of freedom and equality.

Frederick Douglass and “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech

“Wehold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that theyare endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . .”

“With liberty and justice for all.”

Blessings,

June 11, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Trinity Sunday

This coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday.  This is the only day of the year when we specifically honor the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  And while our Collects, Creed, Prefaces, Blessings, and some other parts of the service all often reference the Holy Trinity, this is the only day specifically dedicated to our understanding of God.

The concept of the Trinity is not specifically stated anywhere in the bible.  Instead, it is the result of years of study and revelation that led to people developing the concept of a God who is three-in-one and one-in-three.

As Christians we see evidence of the Trinity in the story of creation when God began to create, the Spirit swept over the waters, and the Word of God spoke.  We see it when Abraham was met by the Lord (singular) appearing as three men.  We see it in John when Jesus says he is in the Father and the Father is in him, and that the Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus from the Father.  There are other places, but you get the idea.  It was Tertullian (160-225) who first developed an early Trinitarian theology and was the first to use the term “Trinity.”  Over many years and several conflicts, Trinitarian theology won out and left us with the understanding that the eternal godhead consists of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one-in-three and three-in-one, co-equal and co-eternal.

That’s a lot to wrap your head around.  It’s been said that if you don’t want to commit heresy, stop there and don’t try to explain any further.  It’s also been said that if you don’t want to commit heresy on Trinity Sunday, have someone else preach.  But since that’s not an option, I’ll see what I can do.

In the meantime, when thinking about the Trinity think about God in a perfect triune relationship of love, communication, and existence.  Proceeding from that, then, should cause us to contemplate how we, as humans made in the image of God, can work to include all of our diverse fellow humans equally in bonds of love, communication, and existence.

Blessings,

June 4, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Pentecost

Pentecost is this coming Sunday.  This is the day the Holy Spirit descended on the twelve apostles and they began speaking in other languages to all the people gathered in Jerusalem.  People had come from far and near for the Feast of Pentecost, a Jewish festival that took place fifty days after Passover to celebrate the harvest.  And on that day the people in Jerusalem heard the apostles speaking in their own languages:  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, and others.

And it’s in this story where we hear one of the greatest lines in Scripture.  After someone accuses the apostles of being filled with new wine, Peter says, “These men are not drunk as you suppose, it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning.”

In this story of Pentecost we see the thrill and wonder of the apostles in that room as they are bathed with the fire of the Holy Spirit.  In this story of Pentecost we see people gather together to celebrate a traditional feast and celebrate the presence of God.  In this story of Pentecost we see twelve men so compelled to share the good news of God in Christ that they did so in a very public way without worrying about what people thought (“filled with new wine”).

This Pentecost we will gather to celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We will be reminded of the promises we made and the expectations placed on us as we renew our baptismal vows.  And then we will gather after the service to spruce up the building and grounds and enjoy each other’s company at a potluck lunch.

We may not have 3000 in attendance, but I have no doubt the Holy Spirit will be present.

Blessings,

May 28, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . The Feast of the Ascension

Tomorrow marks 40 days after Easter and is celebrated in the Church as the Feast of the Ascension.  There is only one place in scripture where this event is told in this way – 40 days after Easter – and that is in Acts 1:1-11.  It’s in this section of Acts where we are told Jesus appeared to his disciples over the course of 40 days before ascending to heaven.

One of my favorite images from scripture comes from Acts 1:9-11a:

            When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While he was going and they were gazing up to toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.  They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you sand looking up toward heaven?"

I have this image of the disciples standing around, looking up to the sky, and saying, “Well, NOW what??”

But then these two angels show up and ask why they are standing there looking up.  Only then does it all sink in, spurring the disciples to action.  From that moment on the disciples devoted themselves to prayer, to proclaiming the gospel, and to living their lives not simply as followers of Christ but as leaders.  This is what Jesus was preparing them for and this is the role they take on.

I wonder how similar we are to the disciples at this point.  We come to church and lift our eyes heavenward as we worship and pray, but do we ever stand here looking up to heaven and wonder, “Now what?”

The Feast of the Ascension makes clear that we have work to do.  It’s not our job to stand here looking up to heaven.  It’s our job to get to work praying and proclaiming the good news of the gospel. 

It’s never too late to start working for the gospel, but if you wait for a couple of angels to show up on your doorstep, you just might miss the opportunity.

Blessings,

May 21, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

The frequency illusion, or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, is a cognitive bias event in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or phrase more frequently after becoming recently aware of it.  For instance, if you have just discovered that a baguet is a long, narrow loaf of French bread, you might suddenly begin seeing these in bakeries where you’ve never noticed them before.

This recently happened to me when I was scrolling through some science videos and came across the idea of the Infinite Hotel Paradox, also known as Hilbert’s Hotel.  It’s a mathematical thought experiment demonstrating infinite sets.  In short, you have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms where every room is occupied, and yet it can still accommodate an infinite number of additional guests, which can then be infinitely repeated.

Shortly after watching that video I started reading a book called The Life Impossible, in which the main character references the mathematician David Hilbert who originally presented this paradox in 1925.

Then this week I was casually perusing Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, as one does, and Chapter III of The Confessions was along these same lines.  Augustine writes, “Everywhere God wholly fills all things, but neither heaven nor earth can contain him.”  This chapter is mostly questions about the nature of God, such as:  If God fills all things, is there any part of God left over?  If God contains all things, are there any things that contain God?  If God is entirely everywhere and in everything, is there anything that can contain God entirely?

It can make your head hurt.  But that’s sort of the point – that the vastness of God cannot be explained or comprehended by mere mortals.  This is one reason I like being an Episcopalian, because there is room for mystery that doesn’t have to be explained and controlled.

So now that you know about Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel accepting an infinite number of guests, and Saint Augustine’s musings about God containing all things while also being contained in all things, I hope you experience your own Baader-Meinhof event in which you begin to notice and struggle with all things being filled entirely with God even though all things cannot contain God altogether.

Blessings,