I woke up wailing. I lay in bed and wept with a nameless, piercing sorrow. What was its source? Present-day Sam was fine – in fact, at that very moment he was participating in a triathlon. But dream-world Sam, the helpless baby, had been squeezed and squashed. My tears wouldn’t stop. I let them flow. I asked Jonas to hold me. Into a single great river of sorrow flowed all …
When I die, I want to die wide. Novelist Erica Jong said that first, and I say it now: I want to die wide. I want to die being fully alive, to lay it all down and give myself freely to the Mother who made me, no holding back. But I do not want the Earth to die. Until the day I die, I want, I want, I want. I …
An extreme “weather event” meets our extreme agitation. The sky is emptied of airplanes. The streets are emptied of cars. The sidewalks are emptied of ICE agents and of angry, grieving crowds. If we have homes to go to – the security of a roof over our heads and of warmth within our walls – we are blessed by the coming of Fern (such a gentle name for such a …
But what elicited the most dread was my own history of claustrophobia. Twenty-five years ago, I was arrested in Washington, DC, in a protest of the Administration’s intention to expand drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was the first time I’d been arrested. Convinced of the righteousness of our cause, I was reasonably calm when the arresting officer cuffed my hands behind my back, seated me and my …
This is a good problem to have. So many thousands of people had gathered from far and wide to join Boston’s protest of the Trump administration that it was impossible from the center of things to get the big picture. I thought of those scenes in War and Peace where soldiers on the battlefield can see only what’s right in front of them. This wasn’t a war – the “Hands …
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6) When my friend Bishop Mark Beckwith invited me to join him every Wednesday this Lent in a Sabbath fast from food, finance, and media,1 my first reaction was to flinch. I do not fast casually. I …
Meanwhile, politicians, pundits, and opinion-purveyors rush to explain what’s going on and what’s likely to happen next. How did our country reach this degree of internal division and distrust? How much chaos and violence will erupt in the days ahead? To what extent will brutality and cruelty become official policy? How many lies will be spoken and driven like nails into a crucified Earth? Drill, drill, drill. Climate change is …
On June 20, when the worship guide was officially released, Episcopal News Service reported that 42 dioceses had approved it for use during this year’s Season of Creation (Sept. 1-Oct. 4). Over the summer, eight more dioceses authorized it, too: The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Reddall, Diocese of Arizona The Rt. Rev. Paula E. Clark, Diocese of Chicago The Rt. Rev. Robert Skirving, Diocese of East Carolina The Rt. Rev. John …
On July 8, two hundred people gathered on a sultry summer morning at the Manhattan headquarters of Citigroup, the largest funder of fossil fuel expansion to the tune of $396 billion in the last eight years alone. Our memorial service was organized by ThirdAct.org and one of a series of nonviolent direct actions being carried out this summer to protest Wall Street’s ongoing financing of climate chaos. This was perhaps …
The seminar had a mouthful of a title: The Feast of Creation and the Mystery of Creation: Ecumenism, Theology, Liturgy, and Signs of the Times in Dialogue. But its focus was clear: Has the time come to add a Feast of Creation to the liturgical calendars of Western Churches? It was a delight to make new friends and a thrill to meet the Rev. Canon Dr. Rachel Mash at long …
Header image: "Suspended in Time," by Christine Labich
