Rev. Valerie's Reveille

As a child, I was the ideal Episcopalian.   I hated change.   I wanted everything to stay the same – predicable, expected, easy.   I knew would happen and I knew how to respond.   Essentially, I didn’t have to think and I wasn’t challenged, which was fine by me.   Life was hard enough and there were so many things I had no control over, so keeping church the same was perfect. And then, when I was in fifth grade, our priest decided that he would change the long-held tradition of kids waiting until Confirmation (which was done in 6 th grade) to receive communion and instruct my cohort to receive communion BEFORE we were Confirmation (a whole year early).   I was not happy.   I didn’t want to participate because it was different, and not for any grand theological reason but because it was a change!   Even after I heard the explanation that Baptism was full initiation into the Christian faith and that I was (essentially) eligible to receive com...

What do you think of when you hear the word, “God”?   Does it conjure up an image or a feeling?   Do you think of a human-like entity?   If so, what gender would you say that entity is?   For centuries, most of the images portrayed as “God” depict an old, white man, and as a result, many people have engraved that image on their hearts and minds when thinking about who and what God is. This forced limitation stops our creative imaginations about how we encounter, and even interact, with God depending on our interactions with other old, white men.   The unfortunate reality is that many people have negative associations with men who have held positions of authority over them, and as a result, picturing God as such is a difficult, even traumatic, experience, and hence something to be avoided. The institutional church has been complicit in this approach by only allowing men to have authority for centuries – even though there was a biblical precedent counter...

August 15 th is a Feast Day honoring St. Mary, mother of our Lord. In the Roman Catholic tradition, it is a holy day of obligation (meaning the expectation is that the faithful go church).   While we don’t have that tradition in the Episcopal Church (nor, unfortunately, did we at St. Barnabas have a service), Mary is absolutely worth our recognition and glorification. I wrote a lot about Mary in my blog post before Christmas which you can read here. She is NOT a meek and mild character to be dotted upon and then disregarded.   She is fierce and should be regarded as such, even emulated. Beyond Mary’s saying, “Yes,” to Jesus’s birth and watching her son die on the cross, she bore witness to Jesus’s ministry, even pushing him at times, like any good mother would. “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said t...

A little more than 3 months ago, our Presiding Bishop, The Most Reverend Michael Curry, offered a stirring reflection on love that was seen by millions of people.  The occasion was the wedding of Price Harry and Meghan Markle, and the Bishop Curry still claims he has no idea how he got that “gig.”  However he got there, Bishop Curry used that platform to remind the world of the power of love, and if that power was ever harnessed as Jesus intended it to be, the world would be set on fire! That is all well and good – go out and love!   Seems easy enough.   Those of us who attend church on a regular basis know the great commandments of loving God, loving our neighbors and loving ourselves.   And yet we also know how difficult this can be.   We can love God, but it can feel that that love is not reciprocated if we haven’t developed a relationship with God.   Loving our neighbors can be “tricky,” especially if we disagree with them.   And our sec...