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During a recent dental appointment, while my mouth was hanging open and water was shooting at my teeth, it occurred to me that the word hygiene is widely applicable. It is defined as “conditions or practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease, especially through cleanliness.” Once, I went to meet a new therapist whose offices were in a part of the clinic entitled 'Mental Hygiene'. I wondered if they were playing around with mental instead of dental, but no, hygiene isn’t just about teeth.
I’ve been thinking about my own propensity toward disease lately. Some relationships in my life don’t feel as healthy as I’d like. Some of my habits are not great. Time to look inward. Do you feel the same? The word hygiene comes from a French word, which came from a Latin word that came from a Greek word that mean healthy, sound, or wholesome. It is an intentional practice of things that support our health. Spiritual hygiene matters too! When we neglect our spiritual lives and our relationship with God, we are harmed. Diseased spirituality can be damaging. It might cause us to think that God has it out for us when bad things happen. It might cause us to expect God to fulfill a bargain or demand. There are plenty of examples of abuse and exploitation done in God’s name and within spiritual communities because of spiritual disease. So how do we practice spiritual hygiene? As individuals, these exercises keep our spiritual life healthy:
The great news is that spiritual hygiene brings mental hygiene, and maybe even dental hygiene! But maybe that’s a bridge too far. (Get it?? I’m rooting for you!) All this to say, be well my friend. And may we together, be well. --- Pastor Rebecca
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 Did you know that St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, may have been the first to understand the power of not 'yucking someone’s yum'? St Ignatius didn’t use those terms. He called them desolations and consolations and offered them as guidelines for deepening one’s spiritual life and making decisions. I find these categories to be hugely helpful for both big decisions and daily life. It's important to know what replenishes us and what depletes!
But it's not always obvious which is which. Maybe this will help: Consolation/Yum! In Ignatian spirituality, consolation refers to experiences that move a person closer to God and help them recognize God's presence. Signs that a person, event, ritual or place provides you with consolation might include:
Desolation/Yuck! On the other hand, desolation refers to experiences that pull a person away from God, leaving them feeling distant or disconnected. People, places, activities or rituals that cause desolation leave us feeling
Ignatius taught that desolation is part of the spiritual journey, but it should not be allowed to become permanent. It is an opportunity for growth. At the very least, we get ourselves out of the yuck and then evaluate what it was we just stepped in. We reflect on why we are having that reaction, what it reveals about our inner selves. After we examine it, we may need to avoiding that thing, or address that person, or and create a boundary around our level of exposure. On the flip side, when we know our consolations, we know how to access replenishment when the yuck is too much. Both our consolations and our desolations are means to know ourselves and God better. I encourage you to do as St. Ignatius taught his followers. Examine your life and name your yums and yucks. The more you do it, the more you will know yourself and grow yourself. Always a good thing! Pastor Rebecca *this essay began with ChatGBT and was lovingly massaged for personalization and clarity.  In my devotions recently, I was struck by the Psalmist urging us to ‘be of good courage. (Psalm 27:14, Psalm 31:24). What does it mean to BE of good courage?
Being of good courage means having the inner strength to face danger and difficulty without fear, and instead with confidence, calmness, and trust. It can also mean having the determination to not let fear stop you from doing something. That can only be achieved if you trust that someone greater, more capable, and more prepared has got your back. People of faith name that person as God. Here are some ways to cultivate BEING of good courage:
An influential Rabbi from the 19th Century, Israel Salanter, said that courage must be cultivated daily. This list is a start in that direction. There are so many things to fear, but God is able to hold us steady in the midst of them. May we not be dismayed or afraid, because God is always with us, always upholding and sustaining. Be of good courage!  Our church community welcomes and cares for the most vulnerable, least loved people in our country: those who have substance disorders. This is something that makes me happy and literally challenges the hell out of me.
Addiction causes people to burn every bridge and then simply burn. The chaos of their disease gets strewn across our church lawn and in our alley. Sadly, many who have come through our doors are now dead from overdose. Last year, in our city, 483 people died this way. Active users of opioids live in a terrible kind of hell: desperate for more, dope sick or high. That relentless cycle is the lens through which their reality is filtered. It's a horrible grind for them, and affects those around them. Including our parish. Our community offers a few tools that help reduce harm and points toward help but that is the best we can do. Our call is to embody the love of Jesus for these, our neighbors, and everyone else. I write this having come back from our church building where I added chains and locks to two gates and to the stairwell to the basement where folks have been defecating. This is part of the grind. It's tough and sometimes gross. You may have noticed that most park bathrooms are not public anymore. No one wants to deal with the chaos and mess caused by this disease. They just want it to disappear. And last year, 483 of the sufferers did. It’s not always clear how to care for our neighbors and protect our property and welcome visitors who need time to understand what we do here. Here is a truth that guides me: Jesus did not make it easy for folks to stay sick. He healed them, he invited them to change, he set the boundary. He asked the disabled man by the pool of Bethsaida, “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6) He told the wealthy man who wanted a spiritual inheritance to give the material goods away (Matthew 19:16f). He broke bread with sinners, but he also broke their easy excuses and told them to change their behaviors(John 8:11). The foundational question is: “Do you want to be well?” We all need healing in one way or another. The good news is that Jesus shows us how to heal. And sometimes, we heal by learning how to be well while tending for the sick. That's what Jesus did. His wholeness taught the rest of us that there is life after death. That there is no chain that God’s love can’t break. That in him, healing is just as infectious as the disease. When we are well in our approach to loving others, we are better healers. The clearer we are in our role, the better able we are to stand in the gap for one another. We trust that God’s healing is coming and God’s help is already here. Someday, every person struggling with opioids or other addictions will be free, every wound will be healed, every broken relationship restored. I’m challenged by and grateful for the work we do together. Thank you for widening the circle so that everyone finds welcome. It's not easy work, it's work that matters for eternity. -- Pastor Rebecca  On Sunday, James Ammon, a certified lay preacher at St. Paul’s, talked about Jesus’ toughest teaching: John 6:53f. Jesus says essentially, if you don’t eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no part of me. We who call ourselves Episcopalians understand this as a part of sacramental theology. Our corner of the Christian community highlights and cherishes sacraments as the best way of understanding God and God’s purposes in this world.
Sacraments are defined as outward visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. Wine and bread at communion, water at baptism, these signs tell us about grace. And – and this is a biggie: they also make us participants and embodiments of grace. Jesus urged us to see them that way. Why else would he be so outrageous as to say eat my flesh and drink my blood? In John 6, he says this in a public gathering. But in the other gospels, Jesus says this while he is holding of bread and a cup at the table with his closest friends. It’s the night before he will be tortured and killed by the powerful. He knows what’s coming. And he offers his friends tangible symbols of sacrificial love. When we take the bread and cup, that’s the sign of grace we are given. And the grace we are invited to become. Episcopal theology is not defined by a theologian. We don’t have a John Calvin or Martin Luther to quote. We don’t have a doctrinal statement. We don’t particularly trust doctrine. Our theology is found in our Prayer Book. In the action of prayer and sacrament. How we understand the Trinity, the crucifixion, human sin, free will, or divine providence, those things are left for us to explore and embrace using the tools offered from other traditions. We don’t take a firm line on them. Our non-negotiable is the goodness of God embedded in this good earth. In bread, wine, water, the love between partners, the love that calls people to serve, the oil of healing resting on the skin of one who suffers. These are our theology. Look for other visible signs of grace today. Perhaps you’ll hear a song that God shines through. Perhaps a smile from a stranger, or an unexpected thank you letter will be your sign. Goodness surrounds you. Grace is everywhere. If you doubt, just take a breath, and give thanks for the air that fills you. Grace. Modern medicine has enabled six generations to co-exist at the same time. In the hundreds of thousands of years humans have walked the earth, this has never happened before. Yet, here we are. It's an amazing and wonderful thing. But for families, it can be confusing and exhausting. Particularly when it comes to end of life issues.
It’s tough being in your seventies making medical decisions for your ninety year old parent. The choices are fraught. Grandad demands French fries but he may choke and die. His Parkinson’s requires pureed food. Granny won't stop sneaking cigarettes even though she has COPD and is on oxygen. What to do?! In his superb book, Being Mortal, Dr. Atul Gawande says such decisions are “a consequence of a society that faces the final phase of the human life cycle by trying not to think about it. [We don't ask the ultimate question:] how to make life worth living when we’re weak and frail and can’t fend for ourselves anymore.” We people of faith say that our times are in God’s hands, yet, so often we cling to life for fear of death. As we age, enough life might mean choosing to say no to the relentless effort to keep us alive. It might mean deciding that at the mature age of X, we will refuse vaccines or medications that prevent sudden death. We'll support prevention, not intervention. We'll let nature run its course. This is not a common approach to aging and dying in American culture. But considerations like the well-being of our descendants, the toll on families, health care pollution and its effects on our planet, and our own commitments to quality over quantity of life make it one worth considering. Alternatively, enough life might mean that we choose to prolong our lives as long as possible accepting that we may die by a thousand diminishments. We learn strategies for sustained meaning, for graciously giving away control of our lives and we practice blessing those who will support us during our prolonged dependence and confinement. We Americans are likely to survive longer than we expect. So, let’s make a choice. Let’s not end up in extreme old age because we capitulated to medicine’s fetishizing of survival. Let’s not arrive there because we didn’t want to think about it and suddenly it happened. We can decide in advance how we want to live our last days. Hear me now, I'm not saying fret about it, I'm saying look with clear eyed candor at your mortality and make decisions. Consider what abundant life will look like when you are frail, dependent and weak. How do you want to approach it? How will you live enough life? In God’s created order, death is a gift, not a curse. We can approach our death with courage and confidence, trusting God’s infinite generative powers. We can say with the Apostle Paul, "Death where is your victory, grave where is your sting? Indeed, death has been swallowed up in victory!" (I Corinthians 15:55) With that hope, death has the appropriate place in our story. -- Pastor Rebecca Boy howdy, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard or spoken the sentence, “I don’t have enough time.” Not having enough time is a fundamental truth of being a mortal.
One of the most helpful concepts of my seminary education was taught to me by Dr. Damayanthi Niles: Finitude. Finitude, at its heart, is the concept of limitation. We are bounded on all sides by the limits of time, space and context. Our culture embraces infinite freedom, capacity, and possibility, but these are illusions. Our time is too limited. Jesus reminded us that our greatest freedom is obedience (Mark 10:44), our possibilities are greatest when we are standing by faith alone (Mark 11:23-24), and our capacities rest in our trust in God, not in ourselves (Matthew 14:22f). So what does enough time mean for us as followers of Jesus? I would suggest that it means at least three things:
Let’s unpack those ideas briefly. First, Jesus was extraordinarily good at honoring the present moment. He was constantly interrupted, harassed and demanded of, and yet, in the Gospels we see him attend to what was before him. Jesus said "sufficient for today are the evils of today."(Matthew 6:34). He didn’t dread or stew over the fact that his death was on the way. In fact, the only time he is portrayed as anxious and upset was in the 24 hours before he died (more). For years, he knew it was coming, but he trusted God to keep him. Doing that is an act of trust . Time is not money. Income disparities fundamentally claim that one person’s hours of work are worth more than another person’s. The 10 hours of the CEO and the 10 hours of the security guard are fundamentally the same, yet one is paid 300% more for them. This is not God’s economy. God holds each of our lives as equally valuable. Our achievement, income, accomplishments in any 24 hour period, or over a life-time, do not define us. Who we are defines us – the qualities, character, and choices of our lives matter. They are timeless and eternal. Enough time is the amount we have. In a culture where we are encouraged to live as long as possible, our faith invites us to another way of thinking. Enough time is the time we are given. Living by faith is living relinquished to God’s timing. This might mean choosing to say no to the industrial medical complex’s constant effort to keep us alive until we die by degrees and a thousand diminishments. Jesus came that we might have abundant life – life to its fullest. In God’s created order, death is a gift, not a curse. What is enough time for you? Your time is a gift. Give some back to your creator and trust that God will always meet you in the present. Just be there to receive it. -- Pastor Rebecca An excerpt from: STOP people pleasing and set your boundaries published by Simon and Shuster by Hailey Magee  In the simplest sense, a boundary separates one thing from another. A fence is a boundary between two properties; our skin is the boundary between our organs and the outside world. A boundary is the line where one thing ends, and another begins. When we set a boundary with another person, we create some sort of separation between us. We might imagine our boundaries as shields that protect us from things that would threaten our well-being, such as others’ rudeness, others’ emotional dumping, unwanted touch, or commitments we don’t have the time and space for. Boundaries enable us to honor our limits—what works for us and what doesn’t—and design our lives and relationships around those limits. Ultimately, boundaries are a recognition that we can’t control what others say or do, but we can control how we respond and what we allow into our environment. That’s what boundaries are all about. Although boundaries create separation in the short term, they are actually necessary and healthy in all relationships. BOUNDARIES VS. REQUESTS When we make requests of others, we ask them to change their behavior. But when we set a boundary, we change our own behavior to protect ourselves, our needs, and our limits. As we discussed in the previous chapter, requests are, at their core, collaborative: a successful request requires another person to change their actions. Boundaries, on the other hand, don’t require others’ participation. When we set a boundary, we are assessing what doesn’t work for us and acting accordingly. These examples demonstrate the difference between requests and boundaries.  As you can see in these examples, our boundaries aren’t about changing other people: they’re about setting clear limits for what we will and will not tolerate from other people. For this reason, boundaries aren’t tools to get more of something from someone. We can’t “boundary” a person into giving us more affection, attention, kindness, or collaboration. We can ask them for more—that’s what requests are all about—but ultimately, boundaries are about separating ourselves from situations that don’t meet our needs, or interactions that make us feel unsafe, unseen, or harmed in some way.
COMMUNICATING OUR BOUNDARIES How we communicate our boundaries depends on our situation. We might use: The Short and Sweet Approach The short and sweet approach tends to work best when others make requests of us that we can’t or don’t wish to fulfill. Perhaps our sister asks if she can borrow our car; perhaps our date asks if we’d like to go back to their apartment; perhaps a community member asks if we can volunteer at the neighborhood bake sale. In these cases, a clear, straightforward boundary will do: • “No.” • “No thank you.” • “I can’t.” • “I don’t have time.” • “Not today.” • “That’s not going to work for me.” “I don’t have time for that right now.” • “Now’s not a good time.” • “Maybe some other time.” The I-Statement Approach Like we discussed in the prior chapter, the I-statement is a four-part communication tool that helps us be direct about our feelings and needs: “I feel _________________ when you _________________ because_________________. I need _________________.” When setting boundaries, the I-statement looks like: “I feel overwhelmed when you try to talk things out moments after an argument because I haven’t had time to process on my own. I need to wait at least an hour to cool down before discussing it with you” or “I feel upset when you discuss my mental health issues with the family because it violates my privacy. I need privacy, so I will keep information about my mental health to myself from now on.” The Radical Transparency Approach We can also use the radical transparency approach to set boundaries. As a reminder, this approach works best with people you trust: people who care for your well-being and are unlikely to weaponize the vulnerability of this approach against you.
Radical transparency looks like: “Dad, I’m afraid of hurting you, but it’s important to me that we can be honest with each other. I want you to know that I can’t listen when you vent about Mom anymore. It puts me in the middle and I’m not comfortable playing that role” or “Gloria, I know that in the past I’ve joined you and your friends for the annual retreat, but I’m trying to save money this year, so I can’t make it.” The Speaking Up Approach Sometimes, we want to speak up as a means of making our own beliefs known. Especially if someone is expressing values or ideals we don’t agree with, speaking up can be a way to both honor our integrity and insert a mental boundary: separation between what they believe and what we believe. Speaking up can look like saying, “I disagree,” “I don’t share your opinion,” “I actually believe that _____,” or “I find what you’re saying to be sexist/racist/transphobic.” PUTTING BOUNDARIES INTO ACTION If we set a boundary that a certain behavior doesn’t work for us, we need to remove ourselves from that behavior when it arises. Otherwise, our boundary is a meaningless statement that offers us no protection. If you set a boundary that you can’t participate in gossip anymore, then enacting it looks like exiting the interaction when someone starts gossiping. If you tell your mom that you can’t take her calls during work hours anymore, enacting that boundary means letting the phone go to voicemail when she calls you during a meeting. If you set a boundary that you won’t continue a conversation when your spouse is yelling, enacting it looks like leaving the conversation when your spouse yells. Other people may not like our boundaries or may push back against them—we’ll discuss this soon—but ultimately, because our boundaries are about our own actions, enacting them is always within our control. DISENGAGING AS BOUNDARY-SETTING When we disengage, we exit an interaction that is harmful to us. By disengaging, we acknowledge that we can’t control others’ actions, but we can control the part we play in our dynamic. Instead of playing tug-of-war, we drop the rope. For the longest time, the idea of disengaging to set boundaries felt strange to me. After all, I was trying to get better at speaking up, and this felt like the opposite of speaking up. I worried that disengaging was the same as avoiding conflict: something I did in my people-pleasing days. However, I quickly learned that disengaging as a form of people-pleasing is very different from disengaging as a form of boundary-setting. For years, one of my family members had made judgmental comments about other people’s weight. It bothered me to no end. I’d spent years struggling with my weight, as had many of my loved ones, and I found these comments callous and dehumanizing. I tried so many times to convince them to stop, but it never worked. They thought I was being “too sensitive” and taking things “too seriously.” No matter how much I argued and cajoled, they wouldn’t change. These frequent debates took a toll on me. After every single one, I felt frustration and rage, and it took hours for me to feel calm again. Eventually, I realized that I was trying to change someone who wouldn’t change and harming myself in the process. So instead of continuing to speak up, I disengaged. When they made comments about people’s weight, I didn’t reply. I didn’t respond to the text; I ended the phone call; I left the room. I couldn’t control them, but I could control whether I dignified their comments with my participation and my presence. Disengaging from a place of people-pleasing is fear-based. When we disengage out of fear, we’re thinking: “I’m afraid to speak up because I want them to like me,” or “I don’t want to rock the boat, so I better stay quiet,” or “I don’t want them to know I have this need because I’m afraid they’ll judge me, so I won’t say anything.” Disengaging as a boundary is power-based. When we disengage as a boundary, we’re thinking: “I can’t control how they treat me, but I can control how much negative treatment I choose to endure,” or “I will not spend my valuable time and energy debating this once again,” or “I will not dignify this rude comment with a response.” Sometimes, a person’s behavior is so hurtful that our only option is to leave the relationship entirely. Other times, we find that we can maintain a relationship if we disengage from unpleasant interactions, or decrease our degree of intimacy over time. There are six boundary strategies—three short-term strategies and three big-picture strategies—that we can use to disengage in this manner. STOP People Pleasing and Find Your Power is now available as hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. There was a period in my late thirties when I was nudged by the Holy Spirit to use vulgarity. Prior to that moment, I did not swear unless a hammer hit my thumb. Now, I pepper my speech with expletives as an act of perceived obedience to God. Am I crazy?
By “vulgarity” I mean only a subset of the huge community of naughty, ugly words that are floating around in the world. Some are terms hateful to religious communities. I do not mean those words. Words that offend my faith or another’s do not fall within the Spirit’s permission to speak. Using such words as “Jesus Christ“ as an emphatic response to someone cutting me off on the highway, or saying “G-dd*mn it,” for me, are too close to the sweet relationship I have with God. In the same way, speaking sarcastically about someone's “Higher Power” offends another's faith. I avoid using language that way. Slurs are another subset of the naughty word category. They are completely antithetical to the life of faith and love because they dehumanize others. I don’t use them and wish no one did. These categories of words do belong inside the practice of love. Ever. What I think we can defend is vulgar language. And it was likely found in the mouth of our Lord Jesus. I know that’s shocking; hang in there before you head down to the comment section to berate me. Here is why I think Jesus probably used vulgar language. “Vulgar” is a Latin word for “common.” The Vulgate, the Latin translation by Jerome from the late 300s (4th C), was the common Bible in Christendom for several hundred years. You hear the same root there. It means “common.” Common life before the 19th century (in other words from just after Eden until perhaps the last 100 years) was rough and tumble, steeped in blood and offal. People lived amongst smells and sights that we might consider horrific. Slaughtered animals, dead bodies, nakedness. Things we hope to never see, they saw every day. It was...vulgar. Those lucky enough to avoid the muck because of wealth and advantage, tended to consider themselves above it all. And upper classes didn’t use the language of the common. See where this is going? The majority of vulgar words are bad words associated with the stinky, foul, daily experiences of the body. These words were considered inappropriate for the upper levels of society who didn’t have to publicly engage with urine, poop, vomit or sex. For the common people, these things were a part of every day. Ever get scolded for using the word “fart”? Even sex often happened in a room or space with other people averting their eyes or pretending to sleep. These words became taboo because of class. Now, let me suggest something really controversial: Jesus was vulgar. God became not only human, but a peasant who lived among people who had sex, peed and poo-ed without much privacy. Common folk. Common savior. The upper class sneered at him. As a commoner, Jesus probably used the Aramaic word for piss or sh*t on a regular basis. Maybe even f*ck. These words weren’t evil, they were uncouth. They highlighted humor, emphasized personal conviction and stuck to the bottom of one’s foot. Why would Jesus not use them? Scientists have shown that vulgarity is correlated with pain management, honesty, and other psychological benefits. Using swear words appropriately helps us emphasize outrage, pain, and personal conviction. But we use them sparingly. If Jesus used them (and I’ve already explained why I think he did) he used them appropriately: in the shock of pain, in the agony of disappointment, in gut-busting laughter. Probably, if vulgarity had found its way into the oral record of Jesus’ sayings, the words were cut from the writing. But there is sh*t in the New Testament. In fact, the only vulgar word in the New Testament comes from the Apostle Paul in the letter to the church in Philippi, where he recounts all his accomplishments in life, and says that he counts them “as [shit], in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Of course translators recoil from such common language - hence why the words rubbish, trash, dung, garbage, refuse, etc. get used instead. But sh*it’s there and there’s no way around it besides pretending and euphemizing. Which is the last thing I want to say about vulgarity. Jesus wasn’t a pretender. He was born smack-dab in the shit and he never claimed otherwise. His particularity is part of his power. My being a Jesus follower includes vulgarity because it keeps me publicly honest about my imperfection and social location. If someone else uses it more than me, I don’t judge them. We are all vulgar in the sight of God. We are all standing in the p*ss and sh*t of this world–even if it’s metaphorical. Decide for yourself what is okay, but remember that Jesus chose to live among the uncouth. He loves and welcomes us common-folk, and never describes us with slurs or stereotypes. Instead Jesus models the way of love using us as examples. Even our physicality, our boogers, farts, and failings fall within the grace and kindness of Jesus’ love. As followers, our words and deeds should imitate him. Whether that imitation includes vulgarity from time to time is up to you. From my sense of the story, it’s likely Jesus doesn’t give two sh*ts about it. -- Pastor Rebecca Ragland Explore More: Discover Magazine Article One December, I worked as a seasonal Bell-Ringer for the Salvation Army in New York City. Around 5 AM every morning, I’d be dropped -off in front of Grand Central Station, and I’d ring my bell for 12 hours, inviting people to drop money in the steel kettle hanging from the tripod I was standing by. One morning, instead of my usual downtown spot, the boss dropped me on a sidewalk on the Upper East Side. Even I, rural girl that I was, knew that the Upper East Side was where the famous people hung out. I had my eye out for movie stars! Lo and behold, in the middle of the day, I noticed a couple come out of the deli across the sidewalk from me. A beautiful woman (just a little older than me but so much more sophisticated) heard the sound of my bell, and saw the Salvation Army kettle. She stopped and dug into her bag. A handsome man stood over her speaking right into her ear. Then he turned a looked my way. It was James Spader.
If you don’t know who that is, he is shown above in the John Hughes movie, Pretty in Pink. In that film, he plays an arrogant jerk (to put it nicely). I had thought he was acting. But I don’t think he had to try very hard. When I wide-eyed, star-stricken, looked into his eyes, he sneered at me. Yes, one side of that gorgeous upper lip rose perceptively as he stared coldly into my sweet, innocent, awestruck face. I’ll admit, it didn’t stop me from staring back with my jaw on my chest, still ringing my little bell 500 miles an hour. Later, when I told my friend that I had seen him, she was so jealous! She wanted to see him too! If only she had been able to ring bells for the Salvation Army on the Upper East Side! It just wasn’t fair! No matter that he behaved like an arrogant jerk, he was James Spader! This Sunday, we’ll remember poor Thomas. All the other disciples saw Jesus after the Resurrection, except him. Jesus appeared in the upper room, not the Upper East Side, but Thomas missed it. It’s hard to miss out. But putting these stories together reminds us that sometimes what we think we’ve missed out on is just stinky fish. And in the love and kindness of God, whenever we long for, seek and desire to see Jesus, he shows up for us. So, don’t worry if you missed somebody else’s amazing Easter. Look for your own. Jesus is risen and ready to meet with you just around the corner. Open your eyes and ears and welcome the blessing. -- Pastor Rebecca Share your star sightings below... Have you ever thought about your story and Jesus sightings? |
AuthorMost of the blog articles are written by our Rector, The Rev. Rebecca Ragland Archives
September 2024
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