The Silly Episcopalian

About a month ago, I started noticing something beautiful on our dog-walks.  Along the trail we walk (it's in the woods in a state park), I noticed some rocks at the base of trees, on fallen logs, etc.  Each rock was painted a rather neutral color to fit into the woods, and each rock had a positive message on it.  I remember "ah, songbirds -- the love song of the morning" as one of them. (I've made my Cursillo, and I immediately thought of these as palanca, but I refused to take them because I wanted them to make other people's days better too.) One night the rocks disappeared.  I thought the park maintenance workers had taken them, and when I asked them (they know us well), they said they hadn't, so I hoped more would come. Meanwhile, I started making rocks of my own, and thought I'd add  Project Semicolon  work to these rocks.  Project Semicolon is a mental health initiative (see link above), and I thought to myself that maybe having the semicolon

Two years ago this past May I was received into the Episcopal Church.  My particular reception liturgy was awkward and chaotic for me.  Our priest-in-charge at my church had just stepped in at that point, and so I missed some of the information that I needed before the liturgy.  So I came in late and wound up walking into the meeting with the Bishop when it was halfway through; 10 minutes before the mass my priest hadn't shown up yet owing to getting stuck at the doctor, and he was in a flannel shirt and jeans when he did.  It was in a tiny church in a tiny town, and the music consisted of a single organist who meets every stereotype of the classic little-old-lady-set-in-her-ways organist who makes so many mistakes that it threw off all the people who actually read music.  All in all, quite the "rinky-dink" service.  It was my mother's first exposure to the Episcopal Church, and I'm afraid that it wasn't the best possible impression for someone being completel

"so what'd you give up?" Invariably we hear the ubiquitous: sweets, chocolate, junk food, cursing... and so many non-observers of Lent leave their knowledge at this. So what of this "giving stuff up" business that is the first thing "muggles" think of Lent?  Are we masochists?  Are we glorying in our own martyrdom, so that everyone can see what devout Christians we are?  I never like to think that Lent is about "giving up."  Giving up implies sacrifice, yes, but it also implies resignation.  Why would we ever want to give up?  Give up on our faith?  Give up on our convictions?  Why not come at Lent stronger, more willing to take on the challenges of this beautiful time - a way of NOT giving up.  Lent is not a season of deprivation.  It is a season of sacrifice, but that is not its focus.  Lent is so, so much more. In Lent we remember.   We remember those 40 days that Christ spent being tempted and tested by the fallen angel Lucifer; w