Transfiguration Sunday
When I was a boy, I hated school … and Transfiguration Sunday.
Candles in God’s Hands
Something we can learn from the legends of Saint Brigid.
The Fear of God
Our faith ancestors often said that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
Apologetics and Action
Proof (like in mathematics) and persuasion (like in Christian apologetics) are two very different things—and neither one is particularly important to the way of Jesus.
A Very Small Being, on God’s Side
In Psalm 139, the poet expresses a profound sense of human smallness.
Keep My Head above the Wave
A merry and mystical new year to all!
I wrote a song this week, a song I’d like to share with you. It’s partly a prayer for God’s help in not drowning. (My daughter is now serving in the USCG, so I always pray “for those in peril on the sea.”) But it’s also partly a prayer for God’s help in another kind of peril: coping with depression.
However you hear it, I hope it will bless you.
Adam
Unquenching the Spirit
The Apostle Paul cautioned us not to quench the spirit. So when you read scripture—especially the joyful passages of Advent—let the spirit out!
O Mother of Music
Hello, Merry Mystics! Here’s a new hymn for Advent. You can learn more about the O Antiphons here, and more about the hymn tune Ebenezer here. The words of the hymn are these:
O Mother of Music
O mother of music! O father of harmony!
Lost in a cacophony to thee we cry.
Though roughened our voices by noisy iniquity,
Hear, singer and savior, our sibilant sigh.
Come, sing us again the song we have forgotten,
Come, teach us again our high, heavenly parts!
Your hand on the harp-strings, your touch on the tuning pegs,
Your beautiful music infusing our hearts.O water of healing! O fountain of love and life!
Unbearably thirsty, for mercy we cry.
Once growing and green, we wilt under the sultry sun,
Once gracing your garden, we harden and dry.
Come now like a rainstorm, rise now like a river,
Soak into the soil and reach into the roots!
Your heavenly fountain, mounting to eternal life,
Your waters arriving, reviving green shoots.O light of the dawning! O hope of the weary world!
We wander in darkness, in need of your aid.
Grim now is the heart and faint under the force of death,
Cold, heavy and hopeless, alone and afraid.
Come, brighten the night with your radiant wonder,
Come, guide us along with your heavenly light!
Let never again our way wander away from you,
Let hope to our hearts return, let it burn bright.
And, as always, sheet music for O Mother of Music is available in our Free Stuff Area.
God’s Little Lights
This sermon, for the first Sunday in Advent, shares a true story from the current Israel-Hamas war. (It’s a hopeful sermon, but also disturbing in places; parents of young children are advised to view this before sharing it them.)
Creative Risk-Taking
The Parable of the Talents is one of the most annoying parables of Jesus. There’s a reason for that.