Month: March 2020

Because I don’t have much understanding of the Daily Offices, and because my concern is with mystical theology, with what happens to us in liturgy, as David Fagerberg puts it, I have been asking people who get great strength and solace from the daily offices to reflect on what happens to them during morning and…

As my students in the School for Diaconal Formation know, I am terrible at teaching the daily offices. The offices have never really been part of my devotional life, so I don’t have any real understanding of them. I’m attracted to the romantic figure of Nicholas Ferrar, whose community at Little Gidding kept the flame…

We will be live-streaming our 10:30 AM Sunday service on Facebook. In order to watch, you only need to go to the parish’s Facebook page (the link is in the menu to the left). Don’t worry if you’re not on Facebook, you can still view the page and the service. You may see an annoying…

As Holy Week approaches, my thoughts turn to worship, specifically how our worship might change during this crisis. I’m not a liturgical theologian. I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about worship. I suppose, if I’m any kind of theologian, I’m a mystical theologian. I spend most of my time thinking about how…

This evening we’ll continue our series on Evelyn Underhill’s stages of the mystical life by doing a deep dive into St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul, accompanied by plenty of poems and art works to help illustrate John’s understanding. You can join us via Zoom by either using the link below or calling…

The president’s stated wish that people go flocking back to the churches on Easter Sunday was a shock to me, but it took a a friend’s comment for me to understand why. The president’s concern is for the economy — a worry that he won’t be reelected if the economic damage gets too bad. What…

I have to confess that I’m heartily tired of Zoom. This is, of course, not the technology’s fault. But I feel like one of the Israelites, wandering in the wilderness and complaining about manna. Things were better in the good ol’ days of two weeks ago, when I could actually be in the same physical…

During yesterday’s Midday Prayer service, the eleven us of gathered together on Zoom spent some time considering the text of the Lord’s Prayer. We were particularly interested in the phrase “save us from the time of trial.” I pointed out that I’d always disliked the contemporary version of the prayer because of its rendering of…

Yesterday morning we live-streamed our service for the first time. There were nine of us in the church – myself; Deacon deniray; Dennis our music director; our four wonderful choral scholars, Nathan, John, Amanda and Sam; and Daniel and Molly to work the camera and manage the stream. The service was an emotional roller-coaster for me.…