Reflections

The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is the same every year.  Lent begins with Jesus being led (or driven, depending on which Gospel we’re reading) by the Spirit into the wilderness, and with the story of what happens to Jesus there.  This year, I was discussing the readings…

...We need Ash Wednesday, the mark of ashes, to remember we are mortal, temporary travellers on the planet, and that we are given stewardship to care for God's creation and each other.We need these ashes.  Our civic discourse is full of appeals to the lowest and most base in us, victimizing…

  Advent is often understood as a time of waiting expectantly.  Our scriptures focus on Mary in her faithful pondering and Zechariah in his mute vigil.  Yet Advent is a time not only of waiting, but also of preparing.  Indeed,…

Forty years ago today the General Convention of The Episcopal Church voted to authorize the ordination of women.  For many of us it is difficult to remember or imagine our church without this expression of wholeness.  …

Last week, I had the privilege to gather with the other 200-plus Episcopal priests in the Diocese of Massachusetts who attended our annual conference.  We heard from Andrew McGowan, the dean of my former seminary, Berkeley at Yale Divinity School.  He spoke about his research into the…

Find the text of Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry's 2016 Easter message here.

My father was always a notorious pack rat.  Some of his collecting fell under the heading of sentimentality – knick-knacks and mementos from his travels or his childhood.  Other items were in the category of thrift – broken things that might one day be fixed, scraps of things that might…

It's a brand new year once more--full of hope and promise, full of anticipation of what it may bring, in our own lives, in the lives of those around us and in the life of the world.  New Year's Day means many things to many people--resolutions, parades, fireworks, champagne, football, to name…

Two friends of mine had an online interpretive disagreement about Emily Dickinson’s poem, with its familiar opening lines: “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –  One friend declared that this was an…

Bishop Alan M. Gates, Bishop Gayle E. Harris and Bishop Barbara C. Harris participated in the installation liturgy of Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry at Washington National Cathedral on Nov. 1.  The installation of the first African-American presiding bishop was a historic moment for the…