The lessons this week are marked by lamentation. One might wish to move some of these lessons around in the event of national catastrophe or even the remembrance of 9/11. But at the same time, on any given day, there are unspeakable losses somewhere, if not everywhere, people are hurting and grieving. Folk grieve losses...... Read More

With the prophet I say: Habakkuk 1:2 How long, Holy One, shall I howl for help, and you will not hear? Cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see iniquity and compel me to look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; litigation and contention arise....... Read More

Let us pray: Come thou Wisdom from on high and order all things far and nigh To us the path of knowledge show and cause us in Her ways to go. Amen. It was for the author of the gospel attributed to John as if time had stopped and started all over again. Or been...... Read More

Advent is a sacralized last-trimester pregnancy among other things. Many women identify with the pregnant Virgin – in spite of the sexual intimacy through which most of them were impregnated, medical and reproductive technologies aside. But all women will not and cannot become pregnant and give birth. For some that is extraordinarily painful and magnified...... Read More

  You've probably noticed that there's something different about our readings today. (See collect and lessons) Our propers commemorate the destruction of the Temple observed on Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the summer month of Av in the Jewish calendar. That day is today. Let us remember.  The Israelite monarchy was a mess. A...... Read More

Job 38:1 Then the Holy One of Old answered Job out of the whirlwind:  2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  3 Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall respond to me.   Let us pray: Blessed are You, Yah our God, Heart of...... Read More

Sometimes I’m up; sometimes I’m down. Sometimes I’m almost level to the ground. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home. Sometimes, I want to do like Hezekiah, and take my stuff – my hopes and my hurts – to God in person, or at least as close as a mortal...... Read More