Rev. Valerie's Reveille

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send [her] to you.” John 16:7 Recently, I had to do some minor home repairs and I thought about how convenient it would be to be able to reach through a door in order to adjust a knob as my body could not contort in the way it needed to be able to see what I was doing.   Regardless of what marvels appear in movies (through the power of CGI and other special effects), the laws of physics still rule our world and the simple truth is two objects cannot occupy the same space (at least not in this dimension!).   You might ask what such musing have to do with Jesus’s ascension into heaven – and the truth is that physics plays a very important role in this situation.   Jesus in any bodily form (resurrected or otherwise), could not be in more than one place at one time.   He was still bound by...

I know many of you were surprised by my announcement that my ministry at St. Barnabas is coming to an end.   Keeping the details of discernment private is an unfortunate aspect of our deployment process, but it is done so that trust is not violated should a call not happen, and the priest remains in his or her current position. I do want to assure everyone that my departure is not because of something that did or did not happen. This entire process was guided by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit was insistent that it is time for me to leave.   And I want to go when things are good! That being said, I am physically present at St. Barnabas for 6 more weeks and there is a lot of work we need to do!  I am here and available to meet with anyone who wants to talk.  If you have any questions that I can answer, I will do so.  There are baseball games to be watched, graduation parties to attend, worship to be offered and ministry opportunities to be explored.  T...

I attended The General Theological Seminary in New York City.  The main worship space is called the Chapel of the Good Shepherd and is presided over by 9 large marble statues, with this depiction of Jesus as the Good Shepherd in the center.  It is a hauntingly beautiful statue that I spent many hours looking at, trying to discover all its mysteries.  I only discerned a few while I was a student, so I still love gazing at it and reflection on it. This Sunday, the 4 th Sunday of Easter, is know as Good Shepherd Sunday, when the Church remembers the promises Jesus fulfilled when he called himself “the Good Shepherd.”   This year it is also Mother’s Day, and I think it is very fitting for us to consider how Jesus is both our Shepherd and our Mother (as Anselm of Canterbury called him).   When we look at the Good Shepherd statue, it is not difficult to meld the two images of shepherd and mother together.   Jesus is looking at the lamb he is tenderly...

One very important component of our daily worship is offering prayers to God for ourselves and on behalf of others.  I recently wrote a blog about the different forms of prayer during Lent as we walked the Way of Love, so I won’t rehash that again (if you are interested, you can easily find the post here .) However, that post did not talk about the ways to access the Prayer Chain at St. Barnabas or how to add someone to the formal “Prayers of the People” we offer during Sunday worship. When I came to St. Barnabas in 2011, there was a core group of people that offered prayers for people and situations on a regular basis called the “Prayer Chain.”   People could send an email to prayer@stbarnabs-sbnj.org and that group would be notified.   Our Office Manager at that time kept a book that she printed out 2 or 3 times a year that had information on those prayer requests.   After she left that position, the printed version of that booklet discontinued, but access...