Here at St. Barnabas, we are about to begin the forty-day journey that in our Christian tradition is called Lent. When I was a child growing up in Catholic school, the only thing I remember about Lent was that I wasn’t allowed to eat meat on Ash Wednesday or any Friday thereafter until Easter. I was also told I had to choose something else to give up, or perhaps even a new practice to take on. Someone may have explained to me the reasoning behind all of this, but if they had, I must not have been paying very good attention. ...  read more

When my children were young, there was a special fascination with doors. If the child was on one side of a door, they wanted to be on the other side. Once on the other side of the door, the child wanted to return and be on the other side. The door was the portal to another world. Remember the wardrobe in the CS
Lewis classic, “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”? For Peter and Lucy and their siblings, the wardrobe was a portal to the magical land of Narnia. That is the thing about doors: they lead to somewhere else. On the other side of a door, there is possibility and adventure. On the other side of the door, there is
the known, the secure, and that is good, too. ...  read more

As I was packing up all of those things, that when you are moving seem to multiply exponentially, a friend was helping me sort and pack. We laughed and joked and passed the time and lightened the load by such conversation. As is often the case, we found items that I had forgotten and that, too, was a joy.

At some point, my friend brought a large rock to me. She asked, “What is the story behind this?” I looked at the pretty ordinary rock and smiled. Several years ago my son had gone on a trip with a friend. They went to the friend’s grandparents and enjoyed several days on the lake. My son, upon returning home, wanted to share his trip and sought a gift for me. There really were no stores around and so he found a good-sized river rock and brought it home. ...  read more

There is something about the first snow of the season that captures both my imagination and my heart. Those flakes that usually begin slowly and over time increase and decrease in size, the winds that sometimes gently and sometimes with more force blow the winds into gentle drifts, and the coating of trees and lawns, streets and left-over lawn furniture all transform the world. Most of all, though, during the falling of the snow, the world becomes strangely and wonderfully silent. Well, if not silent then magically muted. Walking outside in this first snow of the season simply delights the senses.  ...  read more

No matter the year, no matter the day, no matter what has or has not been accomplished, there is that moment: that moment when it is Christmas. For me, that moment seems to come when, after the celebration of the Eucharist, the lights in the sanctuary are dimmed, a candle is lit, and that light shared around the entire gathering of God’s beloved, all who are gathered kneel and in one voice the congregation joins in the singing of that beautiful hymn “Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm, All is bright…” In those moments, indeed, the world for an instant becomes calm, the light of the incarnation of God beams bright. For me in that moment, it is Christmas. In those precious moments, I become acutely aware of that child lying beneath that star with those parents standing alert watching over this child. Shepherds, angels, animals are all part of the portrait. God declares in that moment that age-old covenant promise “Immanuel”: that is, God with us. ...  read more