The Arrow's Path

When the Episcopal Church first went to the Revised Common Lectionary a few years back, I was not all that thrilled with the weird Track 1/Track 2 choose-your-own adventure style Old Testament reading options. I thought that more or less defeated the purpose of a lectionary read in common. I have found I actually like the option, especially the Track that pretty much takes a book and lets you read through it in relative order. This go round, it is Genesis. I have gotten to write sermons twice in a row now on coherent story lines. It works that way with the gospel, usually. With the three year cycle, we pick one synoptic a year and go with it, pretty much in order with some exceptions. John is read during Holy Week and other parts, so he gets interspersed in there as well. The New Testament epistle readings are hit or miss sequentially speaking. The lectionary folks try to make the epistle and gospel have the same theological theme, again in theory. I have found preaching a book in seq

My boss had the foresight, when I was negotiating my contract with my current parish, to have a week long retreat worked in that was not part of "vacation" weeks. Given my marriage and ordination the priesthood in the last year, I have yet had time to take advantage of this option. I formally put in my request for retreat time, and I must say I cleverly timed it so that the boss could look at it and approve it right before he went on his retreat. I doubt he would have turned me down, seeing as I scheduled it on a week when I was not a presider or preacher on the preaching rota. At this point, the retreat will be over two months away, but I am looking forward to it now, nonetheless. I was not sure exactly where I would go for my spiritual retreat. There is a fine monastery up in Schyuler, Nebraska, that I have been to before. (Great retreat center if you are in the neighborhood and looking for something like that.) I wanted to try something new this time, however. Once upon a

"God Will Hear" So...who wants a 45 minute sermon? Some Sundays, especially near the end of the year before Advent, even with three lectionary readings and a Psalm, whoever is preaching is sometimes scrambling to find something for a sermon topic. Today is not one of those days. In fact, today there were too many potential sermon topics given three very good readings from Genesis, Romans, and Matthew. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately depending on how you look at it), the Episcopal Church is typically not a denomination that looks favorably on 45-minute-plus sermons because we do not think either of the two parts of the Eucharist (the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Sacrament) should overshadow the other. Only with a 45 minute sermon could you hope to cover to any degree the scope of the readings today, what with a great talk from Romans about the meaning of baptism from St. Paul that is read at the Easter vigil to the rather disturbing reading of Jesus saying,

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There is a Church Supply store a few blocks from St. Mark's where we get a lot of our liturgical items. We call it Holy Hardware. Its largely a Catholic establishment, but they love us as well since we do most of our business there. I was in there a few minutes ago getting some of that liquid paraffin that goes into those reusable fake altar candles. The owner knows me pretty well because I'm in there once a week or more, depending on what crisis the altar guild has for me on any given week. The owner said, "I've been meaning to ask you, Father...you're a good Anglican priest. What did you think of the new Narnia movie?" Ironically, I finally got to see it yesterday afternoon. My wife and I had planned to see it a few times before, but every time we planned it, something happened like a leaking kitchen sink that was pouring water in the cabinet or a huge tree limb falling in the yard due to a rain storm. I have been pondering in my copious free time today (all

Here is my latest church newsletter article -The Archer ------------------------------------------------ After a week in South Dakota at an Episcopal Youth Camp, I have literally just returned to St. Mark's as of this writing because I came back on the day of the Roar deadline. After a blissful frolic in the Black Hills where there was no e-mail access or cell phone coverage where I was, I found St. Mark's a bustle of activity. My computer is currently still downloading the 238 e-mails awaiting my attention. The church smells from the new doors downstairs that were apparently primed and painted yesterday. I, at first, thought the main chapel was on fire because there was a haze of smoke. (Turns out our organist, Kurt, burned some incense in there to cover up the paint smell.) And last but not least, the massive water main construction project on R Street is going full blast outside my office window, which has to remain open for the time being due to the aforementioned paint sm

I am finally back from my working vacation. I was up in the Black Hills of South Dakota at the Thunderhead Episcopal Center for the 5th and 6th grade youth camp. When I was an intern on the Rosebud Reservation, I got to work there for about 3 weeks, and I went back to help out for this camp. This time I took my wife with me and it was a great time. I had forgotten how hyper 5th graders could be. It is good to be home, and I will recount a few of the adventures later. Right now I have to go mow my back yard jungle. Wheeee....

I had to supply priest out in a parish in Grand Island, Nebraska, this Sunday. The parish was a lovely little church in the down town area, with a beautiful interior and stained glass windows. I have to admit stained glass windows are one of the things I miss at the parish I serve as curate. There are some stained glass windows in the very back, but you can't see them due to the organ. The vestry is talking about putting in some stained glass windows at some point, but that will likely be years after I have moved on to another parish. I also had to adapt to doing a Rite I service, which is not usually done at the parish I serve full time. I love Rite I myself, so it was a treat to get to talk about "manifold sins and wickedness" as well as the beautiful "We do not presume to come to this thy table..." prayer in the Eucharist that is not present in the Rite II service. I have always found this to be a loss for the Rite II folks because I think its one of the most

Last night, Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves, hit career home run number 400. He's only the third career switch hitter other than Eddie Murray and Mickey Mantle to breach that plateau. It just seems like yesterday that Chipper was a rookie and the Braves were winning a World Series. Hard to believe that was 13 years ago. Even harder to believe is that Chipper Jones is hitting almost .418 for the season as of this writing on June 6th. I believe the last person to be hitting over .410 this late int he season was Paul O'Neill of the Yankess back in 1993 or 94. Ted Williams was the last person to hit over .400 (.406 to be exact) for the season back in 1941 right before he went into the service for WWII. No one has done it since, though a few have gotten close in recent decades, namely George Brett in the late '70s and '80s and Tony Gwynn in the mid '90's. It would be awesome if Chipper could do it. I would love to see someone break the .400 mark in my lifetime,

I have my first gig as a supply priest this weekend. It is at a church I have never been to, in a town I have just driven through once. I have no doubt it will make for an interesting adventure. I may where a biretta and a maniple just because I can. It will give them something to talk about. Then again, maybe not. We shall see...

Don't you just love it when your day off is more strenuous than a regular work day? Mondays are my usual off day, and I had high hopes since it was suppose to rain that I would get out of having to weed eat and mow the lawn. I got out of it alright because I noticed as I went out to the garage that the heavy wind/rain storms of the past few weeks had cracked a major limb in a tree next to the garage. My day quickly got consumed with having to cut down, chop up, and dispose of that limb that was a good 6+ inches in diameter. Luckily it had cracked in the direction of the driveway so I just got out my hack saw, and down it went. The tree it came off of is essentially almost dead, so I did not have to hack through a green limb. But it was still quite the job. I prefer using a hacksaw to a chainsaw even though it takes longer. I just largely refuse to use chainsaws if I can possible help it because they don't make left-handed chain saws. Using a chain saw with my non dominant hand

So I got to church this morning to find the rector poking about the Church narthex. A lady was sitting in the back pew, which I thought was sort of odd. It was only 7:30 and the first service was not until 8:30. Usuallty people do not start filtering in until 8ish. I went to unlock the sacristy and the rector came in and said, "Do you need to prep for the service? There's a lady here who needs something to eat. Can you take her across the street to the McDonald's and get her something? Just put it on the church credit card." I was preaching, but luckily I had gotten up early and had already prepped my sermon but there was still a ton of stuff I needed to do to get ready for services such as make coffee for coffee hour, unlock doors, put out candles, etc. Of course, I was preaching on Paul's and James' takes on justification by faith or works. "Faith without works is dead" as St. James said. Begrudgingly I said I would. We walked over; she was not par