Repairing the Breach and Restoring the Streets
[Sermon delivered at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church, San Diego, on 2/5/2017] My sisters and brothers in Christ, Our country is deeply divided. Americans either love or HATE the movie…
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When Imperfection Is Perfect
I recently returned from my uncle’s funeral, at which his longtime companion Betsy said to me, “Sometimes I read your blog.” “Wow,” I said. “I haven’t written there for a…
Pregnant with Transition
In our Gospel reading for December 20 (Luke 1:39-55), we hear of the meeting of two pregnant women, Mary and her relative Elizabeth. Pregnant women often compare notes, to find…
When You’re Not Feelin’ It
Of all the prayer requests I receive, there is one in particular that causes me to ponder: “I want to have faith.” The main reason it causes me to ponder is…
Where everybody knows your name…
One of the amusing things that happens at my new position as a priest at All Saints Church is that people like to quiz me on whether I know their…
How good evangelism is like a great massage
If you have never had “deep tissue” or “sports” massage, I highly recommend it. It has a way of reaching deep into the muscles and tendons and sinews and healing…
Why I Voted for a Sinner
“I’m not voting for him because he was a jerk,” several of my seminary comrades posted in reply to my Facebook post in which I urged them to vote for…
Waiting for Disaster
As I look out the window at the first threatening blasts of Hurricane Sandy on New York City and feel the floor shudder beneath me and my ear drums move…
Episcopal Church v. Episcopal Church
It looks like divorce. The Episcopal Church of the United States and the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina finally did what many Episcopalians have feared for a while: the Episcopal…
The Protestant/Catholic false dichotomy
It probably was not wise to spend much of my summer watching DVDs of the HBO series, “The Tudors,” just after my ordination in the Episcopal Church and just before…
The Rev. Greta Getlein’s ordination sermon
A Sermon Preached on June 16, 2012 by The Rev’d Greta Getlein Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento California Ordination to the Transitional Deaconate Gospel Text John 21:15-19 “Again he asked him, Simon,…
Saved by spirituals and the God of small things….
It can be an incredible gift to know what one is meant to do in life, what one needs to do to get there, and where one can accomplish it.…
Odd ways in which seminary learning is useful….
I have just completed a grueling two weeks of writing three essays, with a combined page count of 48 pages, for two classes. One was on the Sacred and Secular…
What I learned this week….
For some reason, many people here in New Haven have been asking me how classes are going, and the answer is, “Great!” (or in German, “Sehr gut!”). I am thoroughly…
