7th Sunday After Epiphany
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
By Rev. Miriam Spies
Some commentators read this passage as a moment of reconciliation and forgiveness between family…or a story of redistributing food and wealth based on need, but the misuse of power and thinking we know the mind of God has harmful effects for Joseph’s family and for generations of people to come.
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Whose Power and What For?”
In January, over twenty women gathered for a Word and World weekend of rest and writing using winter as their guide and teacher. This is the second reflection offered which also gives some writing prompts. May it be company in these longer winter days.
By Joyce Hollyday
Guided Imagery
Imagine yourself in a harsh winter landscape. Take note of what is present—and what is absent.
You trudge through deep snow in drifts piled high by a strong and biting wind. Your feet begin to ache. Your fingers go numb. The journey feels endless. Continue reading “Winter’s Coziness”
By Kateri Boucher
In January, over twenty women gathered for a Word and World weekend of rest and writing using winter as their guide and teacher. This is the first reflection offered which also gives some writing prompts. May it be company in these longer winter days.
Ceremony
I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They aren’t just entertainment.
Don’t be fooled.
They are all we have, you see,
all we have to fight off
illness and death.
You don’t have anything
if you don’t have the stories.
Their evil is mighty
but it can’t stand up to our stories.
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten.
They would like that
They would be happy
Because we would be defenseless then.
He rubbed his belly.
I keep them here
[he said]
Here, put your hand on it
See, it is moving.
There is life here
for the people.
And in the belly of this story
the rituals and the ceremony
are still growing.
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany C
Isaiah 6:6:1-13
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11
By Wes Howard Brook and Sue Furguson Johnson
This week’s readings reveal life springing forth from sky, sea and soil: seraphim speak to Isaiah, fish are netted by Simon Peter, and images of fleshy seeds of resurrection flow from Paul’s mouth (in the section of 1 Cor 15 that follows the lectionary passage). And if we listen a bit more closely, we can hear the usual lines that distinguish one creature from another blur and cross: Jesus promises that Simon will fish for people, while, for Paul, humans bloom and fruit like flowering trees. What might these criss-crossing images teach us about the intersectionality among living beings, in this realm and in the realm beyond the veil? Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Seraphim, seed people and fish folk, oh my!: celebrating God’s kaleidoscopic web of life”
By Kate Foran
Cruising through the latter days
of Western Civilization in my forest
green Corolla under a 12 year
ultimatum on climate catastrophe
while my phone talks to my car
so I can listen to the news like this
tidbit about an eleventh-century nun
whose dental plaque was a fossil
record of all she consumed,
starch residue and flower pollen,
wool fiber and insect parts,
milk proteins and flecks of precious
lapis lazuli, but wait, how did that get there? Continue reading “Bluetooth”
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
By Mark McReynolds
Since the 2016 US elections, I have found environmental news both sad and enraging. I’ve been angered by the near theft of public land for extractive use and how “natural resource” industry lobbyists are now in charge of our federal land. Drilling for oil off the coast of California and in the middle of critically needed Sage Grouse habitat (surely messing up both) to enrich already rich oil companies is approved without even a nod to our changing climate. Reading of such news leads me to unloving thoughts.
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Post 2016 Faith, Hope and Love”
By Peggy Trendell-Jensen
A springtime Saturday found me sitting in my childhood church, remembering along with others the inspired accomplishments of a woman known in past decades as a faith-filled disciple-in-action. Now 52 years old, I was soon to be ordained as a deacon and the service triggered reflections of the many formative influences that have shaped my own spiritual journey. It occurred to me a walking pilgrimage to all my church homes would be a good way to mark my upcoming milestone. Continue reading “A pilgrim finds memories in the local landscape”
Third Sunday after Epiphany C
A Gaian reading of 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
By Valerie Luna Serrels
12:12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
12:13 For in the one Spirit we were all created into one body – Jew or Gentile, all faith traditions or no faith traditions; of all genders; of all languages; of all colors – black, brown, white skin, green and multi-colored scaly skin, fur, feathers, stems, flowers and roots; two-legged, four-legged, multi-legged, legless, winged, finned, and rooted; All creatures, minerals, and elements of land, sea and sky; Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Wild Christ—Cosmic Christ”
Sermon 1/20/2019 at Day House Catholic Worker
Isaiah 62:1-5
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
Isaiah begins “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet.”
I believe in refusing to be silent. But I also believe in silence and quiet. I believe that we need to still ourselves long enough to hear those words when we are each called “my delight” and listen for “our new name pronounced by the mouth of the Lord.” God calls us by name, but it is so easy to miss when we aren’t paying attention.
It is not easy in our culture to find total silence or to stay in one place long enough to see what is right in front of us.
This week I am thinking a lot about Mary Oliver who died on Thursday. She is a poet who always had the gift of helping me to be quiet and altered my way of seeing the simplicity of life around me.
I have found myself struck with gratitude and grief realizing that there was something steadying to know that Mary Oliver was out in the woods somewhere paying attention to the beetles and the dew drops. So, my reflections tonight are filled with words from Mary Oliver tonight. Continue reading “Sermon 2- Poets and Prophets of Silence and Speech”
Radical Discipleship 