I See What You Meme

It's been a while since I used the blog to share my thoughts. What started as some random musings turned into much more than a Facebook post. I started writing this over a week ago but it's taken a minute to actually hit the publish button. Thanks for your patience. Welcome back.   It has been a week (or two) . One of those weeks where everything happens all at once. A week where things need to happen in a particular order or everything‘s going to go to shit. A week where you just seem to go from one thing to the next thing and you’ll figure out what’s going to happen next as it goes along. A week full of work and family and rest and sleeplessness and it never feels like there’s enough time for anything. But somehow it all works out.   A plaque on the library walk in NYC My week started with a trip for work to NYC. It coincided with my birthday. Because of that, I had all kinds of feelings all week about life in general. The week ended with a trip to Florida that, unfortun...

The other day, as I was washing a glass pitcher in the kitchen, I suddenly flashed back to the memory of receiving the lovely gift. It was 2003 and we had recently moved into our home in Ashland; our first real home of our married life, after a series of rentals through the early days of marriage, graduate school, and 4 moves in 6 years. To mark the occasion of official home ownership, we invited friends and family to join us for a traditional house blessing. The assistant rector of our home church at the time (Trinity Episcopal in Fredericksburg) led our guests in a litany as we moved from room to room, acknowledging the blessing of shelter, recognizing the joy of community, and asking for peace, health, and security in the years to come. Then we celebrated in the most traditional way: with food, beverage, love, and laughter shared with good friends.  In the sacrament of baptism, we recognize a person's entrance into the church family. The congregation at large promises to supp...

In the spirit of.... the Spirit , this week's Follow Friday is dedicated to religion.  In the Christian tradition, it is Holy Week. We just passed over Passover.  And for all those crunchy granola folks out there, today is Earth Day. My guess is there is some holiday upcoming or outgoing for just about every major religion on the planet going on.  Except for Jehovah's Witnesses . I think that's a pretty safe bet.  So this week I will share some of my favorite resources for information, news, food for thought, and all other propaganda revolving around religion. Sojourners: This magazine and website looks at how faith intermingles with politics and culture in our modern world.  Founded by activist and author Jim Wallis, I am often inspired and enlightened by the perspectives presented in their media-sphere. Follow them at @sojourners or @jimwallis I recently discovered The Poached Egg through The Internets and have found it to be another enlightening so...

This week's musings are of a religious nature...inspired by current events. First, this week Pope Benedict made an official declaration that "the Jews were not responsible for killing Jesus."  First of all, I thought we resolved this in 1965 during Vatican II , ( The Sequel: This Time, it's Holier Than Thou) so I'm not really sure why the announcement is "news".  I know that the announcement coincided with the release of the Pope's latest soon to be best-seller Jesus of Nazareth, Part II (Seriously.  Everyone's got to publish these days.) but the more I thought about this bit of news the more it puzzled me.  As Christians, we believe that Jesus came to Earth as God in human form.  Aside from his short but amazing ministry, his primary purpose was to die for the sins of the world.  His death and subsequent resurrection is the tangible symbol of God's everlasting Grace.  Yes, his death was incredibly violent.  Crucifixion is a horrible ...