MUSINGS ON MOTHER'S DAY

My thoughts and feelings about Mother's Day are, at best, ambivalent. On the one hand, I'm enormously grateful to my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt for the love and support all three gave me throughout their lives.

On the other hand, the cynic in me says the gift and greeting card holiday was promoted by merchants who want to sell their goods.

In my family, I prefer the celebration to be very low-key, with no gifts that can't be consumed in one way or another since I'm trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to rid our house of stuff.

To mothers (and all parents and all who care for children in any way): You will never get it exactly right, so forget about achieving perfection, love the children, and do the best you can.

The camellia is for everyone to enjoy.

"RELIGION SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD"

Religion shouldn’t be this hard.

An assembly that exists to help people shouldn’t be so willing to hurt people — by declaring them worthless, unacceptable, undesirable or strangers at the gate.
....

Church should be a safe place — safe to be oneself, safe to make one’s confession, safe to love whoever one feels called to love, safe to imagine more, safe to fail. Instead, church often is a dangerous place, where people feel guarded, self-protective, hemmed in by tradition and expectation, required to obey rules.

Tom Ehrich has served as a priest in the Episcopal Church for 36 years, so I expect he knows a thing or two, though I know of some who have served as pastors even longer, and they still don't understand.  The entire column is excellent, and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety.  Ehrich's website is Morning Walk Media.

GAYS CONFESSING

 

Yes.

Read David's post at nakedpastor.

FEAST OF JULIAN OF NORWICH

Stained glass in Julian's cell

The following was translated by -- Liz Broadwell:

And from the time that [the vision] was shown, I desired often to know what our Lord's meaning was. And fifteen years and more afterward I was answered in my spiritual understanding, thus: 'Would you know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Keep yourself therein and you shall know and understand more in the same. But you shall never know nor understand any other thing, forever.'
 
Thus I was taught that love was our Lord's meaning. And I saw quite clearly in this and in all, that before God made us, he loved us, which love was never slaked nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his work, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us. And in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had a beginning. But the love wherein he made us was in him with no beginning. And all this shall be seen in God without end ... 

From the Lectionary.

Lord God, who in your compassion granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(Lesser Feasts and Fasts of The Episcopal Church.)

SO JESUS AND THE EASTER BUNNY WALK INTO A BAR

 

From nakedpastor.

INFATUATION VS. LOVE

Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Connors.

Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger, and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway.


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

STORY OF THE DAY - REAL HERO

Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, 
but try waking up every morning & 
loving the world all over again. That's 
what  takes a real hero. 

From StoryPeople. 

GOD'S JUDGMENT IS LOVE

We have already been judged by God, and the nature of that judgment is that it is a judgment of love. In God’s judgment we need saving and we are worth saving, and we cannot do it ourselves. In God’s judgment we need to be rescued.

-Br. David Vryhof
Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Bro John Anthony posted in St. Cuthbert's Cottage

HOPE, FAITH, LOVE, AND FORGIVENESS

Reinhold Niebuhr:

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

“Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

“Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

“No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.

“Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

H/T to Rmj at Adventus.