Journal

Category: Liturgical Seasons

Sheer Joy!

Last time I offered some Transcendence.  This time I want to offer Sheer Joy!  These few things fill my heart with laughter or happiness or wonder or all of them at the same time.  Enjoy them! The first is probably my favorite minute and twenty-two seconds on Youtube....

The Gift of Contemplation

On my journey with Christ I have considered myself many things:  a redeemed, rescued, forgiven, beloved child of God; Jesus’s friend; Jesus’s co-laborer in the world; God’s handiwork created in His image.  But rarely have I identified with being a “contemplative,” one...

Waiting for Jesus – First week of Advent

Every year as Advent begins our family takes out its Christmas library – the loosely curated stash of books acquired over many years conveying the Christmas story and spirit in poetry, images, songs, and stories from across centuries and around the world.  At the...

A Song of Spring

The coming of spring inspires line after line of verse, note after note of melody, and with very good reason. This year, winter seems reluctant to release its icy grip on the Washington Area and the Shenandoah Valley (which the Montgomery County Police have coped with...

The Road to Emmaus

We had such a great time celebrating with our friends at Christ Church Vienna on April 3.  You can listen to the sermon here, or you can download it from CCV’s website here. Some of our favorite soundbytes: “Disillusionment can be a great gift”...

Easter Monday Devotion

EASTER MONDAY, 2016 by John S. Gardner The first Lent and first Easter since my parents’ deaths has been a time for reflection, a time of necessary busyness, welcome return to work, and sometimes enforced rest (“I am become like one who has no strength,” Ps. 88:4), a...

Palm Sunday Poem

We’re borrowing from G.K. Chesterton and posting a poem told from the perspective of the animal on which Jesus entered Jerusalem.  Welcome to Holy Week everyone! The Donkey BY G. K. CHESTERTON When fishes flew and forests walked    And figs grew upon thorn, Some...

A Prayer to Open Lent

This is one of my all-time favorite poems and prayers, from a man well-acquainted with God, and with sin.  Regarding sin, who cannot agree with his refrain, “I have more”. Yet it ends in hope and freedom from fear, which is precisely the destination of journey of Lent...

Blizzard Preparations and a Celtic Lent

With the storm coming, it’s natural to think about seasonal preparation.  The news is crowded with images of hardware stores sold out of shovels and salt, and empty grocery store shelves where milk and bread used to be. No one wants to be caught in a storm unprepared....
An Alphabet for Thanksgiving

An Alphabet for Thanksgiving

  Atonement bought by the Son of God, the ransom paid in righteous blood; Brothers and sisters, the bonds we share of love and life though scattered everywhere; Creation sings its praises heav’n winging though no metal strikes it raises its ringing;...

Orienting Towards Advent

Soon, well already actually, you’re going to get slammed with the commercialization that surrounds the Advent and Christmas season.   Very little in the holiday season is going to be calling you to engage the deep meaning of it, the Person, the Baby, the One Who Came,...

He is risen indeed!

Hallelujah! The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed! With great joy and relief and gladness and hope and thanksgiving we celebrate today the resurrection of our Jesus Christ from the dead!   It changed, and changes everything.   Glory be to you, Lord Christ! “The good...

He Didn’t Have To Do It

These past couple of years I’ve had the chance to go a couple of times to the Holy Land.  Every place where Jesus was has deep meaning.  A couple of places meet me with a special power each time.  One of them is the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem.   It is a place...