Rector’s Corner

April 22, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, I hope and pray that you were able to join your Doubter community of faith last Sunday in one of the wonderful expressions of worship that took place both on-line and in-person, as we joyously continued the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, and our own, here on the corner of Inwood and Mockingbird!  Both offerings were spirit-filled, happy occasions, as we joined together to celebrate the goodness of our risen Savior, and all that that necessarily implies for each of us, and for our community and world! The resurrection joy that we feel at being reunited as the body of Christ, again and again, mirrors the joy that Mary and each of the disciples feel following their own days, weeks, and months of desperation.  Love comes again, and again, and again, like the ever-flowing stream! It was wonderful to welcome the…

April 15, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, A very happy and joyous Eastertide to you as we move more deeply into this season of celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  “Christ is alive, let Christians sing!”  There is so much to celebrate as we live more fully into the Great Paschal Mystery over the course of the coming days, weeks, and months.  Because Christ lives, God triumphs over death, and we too get to share in the great banquet feast of rebirth and eternal life! The funny thing about mysteries, gifts, and we humans – they come with a bit of trepidation and fear, because there is so much that we don’t know, can’t see, or touch, or taste, or know, all the answers, well in advance (think Thomas!).  How did this happen?  Can it possibly be?  Did our Jesus really surmount the…

April 1, 2021 At this writing, we find ourselves on the precipice of the second most unusual Pascal Triduum, the great three days marking of our Lord Jesus Christ’s suffering, passion, death, and ultimate resurrection.  For this is the second time that we are making this journey together, and yet apart.  You would think that we would be old hands at this now, doing both liturgy, and zoom, together; and yet, all the anxieties that precede each and every Holy Week, each and every year, those same anxieties and fears find their way into this one as well.  This year refuses to be exceptional. In all of my years of church work, I have yet to see Easter preparation that does not involve some necessary amount of anxiety, like the birth pangs of labor.  Will the liturgies all be planned and executed correctly?  Will the music be right?  Will the…

March 25, 2021 7 Mass Shootings in 7 Days That was an attention-grabbing headline that caught me off-guard, unprepared for the magnitude of all that it represents.  Lives so cruelly and so senselessly cut short.  Pain and suffering has been transferred from one person onto many, many others, pain and suffering that will go on for many lifetimes.  When you think about all the potential that is lost, the very course of our human history is altered each and every time human life is taken, lives lost, for I really do believe that we are all connected, and what happens to any one of us affects every one of us. It does point to a much larger issue, the epidemic of gun violence that has seized our nation at a critical juncture, when people seem more troubled and divided than ever before, particularly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,…

March 18, 2021 And now, please turn to page 447 in your Book of Common Prayer. There, you will find one of the least-trod sacramental rites of the Anglican tradition, one that for unspoken reason, holds intimidating sway over us all, The Reconciliation of a Penitent, more commonly called “confession.”  Somewhere along the way, the more ritualized act of “confession” got left behind on the cutting room floor, when we made a deliberate split from Rome.  Oh, we confess, weekly, as a community; some of us even daily, in the offices.  But the act of telling our sin, our separation, to another living soul, is somehow so intimidating, so scary, so frightening. There is a tension that exists between confession and gratitude, the relief that comes through reunion, the rejoinder of souls that sin has torn apart.  It is in that tension that God sits, waiting patiently for us, like…

March 11, 2021 lex orandi lex credendi (Praying Shapes Believing) On Thursday, Fr. Stephen Waller and I had the pleasure of being invited as conversation partners into Theologian-in-Residence Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle’s master class entitled “Eschatology and Ministry in Uncertain Times.”  Eschatology, the parts of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul, and of humankind, are not typically front-and-center of daily theological life for most clergy or flock.  Images of a torn, broken world swallowed up in apocalyptic fires of judgment come to mind, not the subject of usual polite Episcopal conversation. Episcopal images of eschatology and the eschaton, the end of the world as we know it, and the ushering in of God’s reign, are anchored in the sure and sound hope of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ, the pivotal fulfillment of the “God among us” act.   The hope that we strain toward…

March 4, 2021 Lord, who through-out these forty days for us didst fast and pray, Teach us with thee to mourn our sins, and close by thee to stay. –    Claudia Frances Hernaman (1838 – 1898) Why, O God, why, do we need to do this Lenten journey, a deep-dive inward, into the psyche of sin, separation from God (and each other) this year, of all years?  It would seem that we have spent quite enough time in isolation, apart from our friends and family, our loved ones.  How long it has been since we freely and fearlessly embraced, inhaling and exhaling uninhibited Holy Spirit presence, the breath of life. Did we take Holy Spirit for granted?  Definitely.  Will we again?  Possibly.  Maybe.  Probably? Why is that, fellow Lenten sojourners?  Why must we go into the desert, for 40 days and 40 nights, to realize again, that we need each…

February 25, 2021 500,000 – Half of 1 Million – 500,000 However you choose to look at it, 500,000 is a staggering number.  It represents more life lost than was lost in four major wars.  It is a number that we simply should not, must not, and cannot race by in our attempt to avoid the grim reality of what that number represents.  This week, our nation passed this milestone – the sheer number of lives lost to the COVID-19 virus, this “Corona-tide” that we have been mired in for now nearly one whole year. We are only two weeks shy, the third Sunday of Lent, March 15, 2020, of the Sunday we conducted our first virtual service, on-line, thinking we would be back in our beloved worship space in two short weeks!  Signs are still posted that say, “Closed until March 27, 2020!”  We promised ourselves surely we would…

February 19, 2021 Dear Doubters of Great Faith, As we begin to unwind and thaw from the Great Freeze, “Sn-ovid” 2021, I hope and pray that you are safe and warm and have your utilities restored, and that your property has emerged unharmed.  If any of that is not the case, I hope you will let me or one of the clergy know how we can be of service to engage the love, care, and support of the St. Thomas the Apostle family at this most precarious time. Please be prayerful for our sisters and brothers around the city and state who are not so fortunate.  Many have been left without food, water, and other resources, or homeless.  I urge you to look for ways that you can share from what you have, most especially through generosity to organizations such as Episcopal Relief and Development (https://support.episcopalrelief.org/) and the North Texas…

February 11, 2021 My dear Doubters of Great Faith, We are fast approaching the final Sunday of Epiphany, the day we mark Jesus’ “transfiguration” to three of his disciples, the day God reiterates, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” It is a high point in the incarnational process, God’s great journey together with humanity, as God asserts God’s identity in this at once human, and yet most divine gift, Jesus Christ. “This IS my Son, the Beloved; LISTEN to him!” We spend Epiphany basking in revelations of the great gift of Christmas, dazzling and resplendent, emerging through waters of baptism, ascending majestic mountain heights. Can we yet fully appreciate the gift that Christmas delivers? Is that possible? What has God done, coming among us, in this most radical of ways? Deciding what to do with this gift is intimately bound to our thoughts and beliefs about our…