Thoughts Along the Journey

  A "legacy" is something that is long-lasting, it seems to me.  One of my pet peeves is that news media outlets use the word when referring to President Biden's executive orders that are reversing President Trump's "legacy."  (News outlets used the same word when President Trump was reversing so much of what President Obama had done, simply by issuing executive orders.)  I posted on face book, "How can it be a legacy  if all it takes to reverse it is the next President's executive orders?" One friend responded that President Trump's legacy was January 6, 2021. Another responded that the former president's legacy is teaching us how fragile our democracy is. President Trump certainly encouraged and exploited the divisions in our country and, with his lies and vitriol, caused politics to be even more of "a raging fire," to use President Biden phrase, yesterday. But President Trump only accelerated the shouting of grievances t...

How will you respond to the new thing that God is doing?   The caste system in America is cracking open.*  That is the system that was invented to keep white Europeans (particularly males) on top, and African-Americans on the bottom in this land that became the United States of America.  The system was created within a few decades of the first enslaved Africans arriving at Point Comfort (now Hampton, VA) in 1619, when the designation "white" was invented to identify those entitled to full civil rights in the colony of Virginia. As the caste system cracks open, there has been a great deal of reactivity.  The murders of George Floyd and Brenna Taylor provoked angry demonstrations in the streets.   Ironically, the presidency of Donald Trump increased the pressure causing the caste system to crack open.  On the one hand, it is remarkable that so many white folks finally listened to the painful truths that African-Americans have been expressing for yea...

As we have been navigating our way through the recent days of our republic, during events that are without precedent in our republic's history, here's how much of a nerd I am: I am guided by the liturgical year! This past Wednesday, January 6, was the feast of the Epiphany. The Epiphany is rooted in the Biblical story of the magi visiting Jesus, bringing their gifts (Matthew 2:1-12).  Themes of the Epiphany are light, illumination, coming to clarity.  This past Wednesday, in her opening remarks to members of the United States House of Representatives, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even mentioned that it was the Epiphany, and expressed her wish that accepting the Electoral College votes on that day would bring clarity to the past two months during which so many lies about the integrity of the election have caused so much confusion and so much doubt.  I thought it to be painful irony that it was on the Epiphany that President Donald Trump and Senators Josh Hawley a...

Happy Epiphany! After the Twelve Days of Christmas, the western church designates January 6 to be the Epiphany. The Biblical story is that of the "wise men" arriving to present the Jesus with gifts. And, because of the construction of the dates in the western church's liturgical calendar, Christmas Eve children's pageants have always had the "wise men" arriving at the crib of the newborn Jesus. Here's an image of that traditional understanding: You probably received a Christmas card with a scene like that. But I've been intrigued, since this past Sunday, when Cathy Boyd (Rector of St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Williamsburg) fleetingly mentioned that the Epiphany might have happened two years after Jesus' birth. Looking at the stories in the Bible, I'm thinking that that may actually make the most sense. Are you surprised to know that there is only one story in the Bible describing Jesus' birth? That's in one of the four ...