Bread, Wine, Salt

What is the reputation of our church? What do people say about St. Andrew’s? This is not an idle question. As a member of the Vestry in the middle of a Rector search, our reputation is something I have been thinking about a lot. Any candidate considering a call to St. Andrew’s will surely ask around to find out about us. The Episcopal church is small enough that any priest will know someone who knows someone who knows us. What will they say? Our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians today is the very beginning of the first of the two letters we have from Paul to the church at Thessalonica. This epistle is one of the earliest writings of what is now the New Testament. Paul visited Thessalonica in the late forties or early fifties, that is, the first century CE, not the 1940’s. The letter, written from Athens, was written as a Pastor to his congregation. This opening section is an example of Paul’s “Thanksgiving” sections. He opens almost every letter to his churches by listin...

  I have been thinking about what to do with the toxic pieces of your family history: The bank letter of credit issued to the cotton merchant. The portrait of a man and wife who were on the wrong side of a war,  not the losing side  the wrong side. The letter crafted to convey the most pain in perfect rolling script. The hurt feelings that have no physical form but are  solid all the same;  weight that you carry. The heroic stories you believed when you were small But now you realize they have no heroes in them You can burn them,  store them in the attic,  put them in a box you give to your cousins at Christmas,  fling them without ceremony in a dumpster on the other side of town and drive away quickly,  keep them wrapped in archival tissue paper and take them out to show at family gatherings.  If anyone objects you can say that things were different then.  Offer no further explanation. You can weaponize them: use them to fuel ...