“Are you coming back to California?”
After finishing my coursework for my first year of seminary, I hopped on a plane and visited my daughter at her college in Seattle and then swung down to California…
Sometimes, seminary makes me cry
Okay, here’s another big difference between seminary and “regular” graduate school: seminary makes me cry. And I like seminary! But I don’t remember my graduate studies in English and American…
So many good tidings, so many papers
Well, the opportunities just keep aflowing, and so do the research notes and jotted outlines for papers. Most of my waiting is over for this semester. One exciting bit of…
An Easy Easter!
For the past, say, eleven years of my life, Holy Week (the week before Easter) and Easter Sunday have been very busy times for me. Whether I was a choir…
Fasting for Haiti and for Peace
I have been busy thinking about, planning, and promoting Yale Divinity School’s Fast for Haiti, Fast for Peace, which begins on March 24 and ends on March 31, during Holy…
“Is that gold real?”
At the church where I worship most Sundays, I was sitting in front of a family with young children. In front of us was a regular altar on the same…
The long wait…
The Bible is replete with examples of waiting: Abraham and Sarah waiting for that long line of descendants promised by God; Jacob working 7 years for one wife and then…
Communion
I had two wonderful experiences of Communion today that underscored the love and charity that can exist between people of different faiths. (For any non-Christians reading this, “communion” is the…
“Love without justice is sentimentality”
I wish I could have brought you all along on my day today. My fellow Episcopal seminarians and I are studying urban ministry this semester in our Anglican colloquium, and…
So 12 Benedictines and a Franciscan walk into a bar…
I am at the end of my first Reading Week of the spring semester at Yale Divinity School, a week given to seminarians to catch up on reading. But I’m…
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.…
And the CPE interviews begin!
I thought I would have a hard time getting a CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) placement this summer because we were told to get our applications in by December. Unfortunately, we…
Why theology matters
It’s jarring to listen to the news from Haiti, the utter desperation of the situation there, and to wait for news from a seminary classmate whose father is gravely ill,…
From one world to another…
I am back from eight wonderful days in sunny California, bouncing between Sacramento and the Bay Area and visits with friends, sisters, brothers in law, nieces, and nephews. We were…
Gospel on the Ground 