During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. In 2013, I was called to be the rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic, CT. As part of my interview process, I led the vestry in a church service in October 2013. I adapted the following sermon from the previous Pentecost for that service.
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2013: The Spirit Moves”
During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. In 2012, I wrote a piece about the Pixar movie Brave, which presaged the Podcast for Nerdy Christians, which I started in 2019. This piece became the basis of an episode in Season 2.
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2012: The Sermon Embedded in “Brave””
During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. In 2011, I wrote the ninth of the Davies Tales, autobiographical fiction about a young priest. You can find the whole series here.
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2011: First Time (Davies Tales #9)”
During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. In October of 2010, the historic chapel at my seminary burned down. I wrote this reflection about my experience in that awkward, beautiful building.
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2010: The Pews in the North Transept, A Remembrance”
During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. In the second year of the website, 2009, I started a short-lived video series. This video (which was modeled after The Colbert Report) eventually found its way to my publisher, which is what prompted them to get in touch with me.
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2009: Humor in the Bible”
During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays* I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. The first year of the website, 2008, saw me experimenting quite a bit with what I would put on the site. Very few folks read my stuff back then, but over the years, the following post has been one of my most viewed ever. (*Posting this on Tuesday because a sick kid at home caused me to miss posting yesterday.)
Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2008: Pick your periscope (Bible study #2)”
Yesterday was my final day of sabbatical time: twelve long weeks set apart from (at least some of) my normal rhythms. I spent a good chunk of it in my basement. The parts I didn’t spend in my basement I spent in Alabama, North Carolina, and Israel-Palestine. I also visited my spiritual director three times, and her insights were (as always) helpful, inspired, compassionate, and kind.
I went into this sabbatical time with four written goals and one unwritten goal. The unwritten one was not to be so bound to my four written goals that I didn’t move where the Holy Spirit was leading me. The four written goals were:
Because of the unwritten goal, I am striving not to quantify “how well” I achieved the four written ones. Rather, here are a few observations about each one. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 12: The End”
As my sabbatical time draws to a close, I want to share with you the last of the four movements that I hoped to address during these three months. As a refresher, these items have been
Last Sunday, June 23, 2019, my paternal grandmother Dorothy died. She had spent two weeks in the loving and tender care of Hospice following a massive stroke. She was 93-years-old, which was, truth be told, a bit on the young side for her long-lived family. I was in the Holy Land during most of her time in Hospice, and thanks to the wonder of the internet, a FaceTime call put me in the room with her from halfway across the world. My father said that she visibly brightened when she heard my voice, though by that point she could not talk. She could barely squeeze a hand. I lit a candle for her in the “upper room” in the Old City, a peaceful place that beckoned prayer. The tears I shed for her watered the dusty ground of Jerusalem. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 10: A Remembrance”
Week Nine of Sabbatical notes finds me really, really jet-lagged. Like can’t form full sentences jet-lagged. So instead of writing a piece for this week, I put together a slideshow of some of my pictures from the nine-day pilgrimage, accompanied by some rambling voiceover. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 9: Pictures of Pilgrimage”
Where the Wind... 