Rev. Valerie's Reveille

For the past three weeks I have been enthralled with a PBS documentary series called A Path Appears , which follows “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and a group of dedicated actor/advocates to Colombia, Haiti, Kenya, and throughout the United States. They uncover the harshest forms of gender inequality, the devastating impact of poverty and the ripple effects that follow: including sex trafficking, teen-pregnancy, gender-based violence, child slavery and the effective solutions being forged to combat them.” You can watch the episodes at http://video.pbs.org/video/2365387809/ . In the first episode, an organization called Thistle Farms/Magdalene House is featured.  Located in Nashville, TN, this ministry was started by an Episcopal priest, Becca Stevens, to address the terrible cycle of human trafficking, drug abuse, poverty and lack of education.  It was startling for me to see the horrible way humans treat other humans in this day a...

It has been 42 days since Christmas.  I know this without looking at a calendar because February 2 nd is when the Church remembers the Feast of the Presentation, which is based on the Jewish custom that a woman would be made ritually clean at the Temple 40 days after childbirth.  It combines nicely with the tradition of parents “buying back” first born sons from being given (literally) to God by making an offering at the Temple (1 Samuel 27-28).  The Feast commemorates when the Holy Family went to the temple to take care of these ritual obligations, and encountered Simeon and Anna on their visit, who prophesized about Jesus (Luke 2:25-38). Another name for this occasion is “Candlemas.”  As the Church began to develop its traditions, one way of celebrating the “light to the nations,” as Simeon declares in his speech (which became an integral part of evening worship in the canticle Nunc Dimittis ), was to bless all the candles that would be used in a church for the...