Week of May 19, 2019
This past Spring I coached for the first time a roller derby team, the Regulators. They were a brand-new expansion team for Fountain City Roller Derby, a league in Kansas City. Before my retirement I played for another team for FCRD, the Usual Suspects, who ironically would win the championship after I left. As an…
Week of May 12, 2019
Ram Dass and Paul Gorman wrote a book called “How Can I Help?” It was a highly influential textbook for me in seminary when I was studying pastoral care. The book is a guide for service, be it as professionals, volunteers, activists, family or friends. At its core, the key lessons involve listening and asking…
Week of May 5, 2019
This Easter season we will be hearing a great deal from the book of Revelation in our worship service, usually as the second (or third, if you count the Psalm) scripture reading. This book often creates feelings of confusion, concern, or dismissal because of its unique nature in the New Testament as an apocalyptic text….
Week of April 28, 2019
On the week after Easter my old boss, the Rev. Arthur Hadley, used to take the entire week off and travel to the Trappist monastery that had been the home of Thomas Merton. But not only does the idea of being silent for an entire week sound like complete torture to me, the week after Easter…
Week of April 21, 2019
I stepped outside this week in short sleeves, expecting the warm sun of the days prior, only to be blasted by a gust of brisk, cold air. I nervously checked my phone to see what the weather was to be for Easter Sunday, mindful of the fact that we have had snow on Easter the…
Week of April 14, 2019
A weeklong anamnesis. That sounds like a medical problem, but it actually what Holy Week aspires to be. “Anamnesis” is the portion of the Eucharist in which we remember Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. It typically starts with something like “On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread…” We engage in that story…
Week of April 7, 2019
I have two things I want to share with the congregation, one regarding a recent break-in and another regarding my new policy regarding announcements. First, our Junior Warden made an announcement at the 10:30 AM service two Sundays ago that Trinity had experienced another break-in on March 11. The intruders entered the church proper, rummaged through the…
Week of March 31, 2019
The Rt. Rev. Cathleen Bascom, newly-elected bishop of the Diocese of Kansas, will be visiting Trinity for the first time on May 26. Bishop Bascom has a long history with Trinity Church and the Canterbury House in Lawrence, and we thrilled to welcome her back to a familiar home. The bishop will be welcoming new members,…
Week of March 24, 2019
I’ve been thinking a lot about Lenten disciplines this year, mostly trying to find alternatives ways of looking at them than just “I’m giving up this because it just happens to be Lent and we’re support be suffer, etc.” I’ve posed the idea that a Lenten discipline could (maybe even should) be something that transcends…
Week of March 17, 2019
We have not talked a lot about this lately, but this Sunday is the Discretionary Sunday for the month of March. That means that all loose offering (cash which is not in an envelope designating the donor) goes to our discretionary funds. For those unfamiliar with this, Trinity Church has two accounts designated as “discretionary…