It was a hobbit hole and that means comfort

September 16, 2024 Mark Brians

J.R.R Tolkien begins the Hobbit by telling us that Bilbo was a hobbit who lived in a hole in the ground, though not a muddy or dirty hole but a very homely and welcoming one for “It was a hobbit hole and that means comfort.” I’ve spent the weekend in airports across the country, in the ICU, in a beach condo in Destin Florida, and will return home shortly to Honolulu. That is to say, I’ve seen a lot of things that fly under the banner of “comfort” all while praying the daily office and reading The Lord of the Rings (which I read every four years during he election cycle). All of this has given rise to a question in me, “What is comfort?”

A wedding in Seattle

September 10, 2024 Mark Brians

On Thursday night my family dropped me off at the airport on our way home the west-side priory group. I flew through the night to Seattle, WA for the wedding of Todd (a good friend of several of us AllSaintsees) and Dhayoung.

Arriving early in the morning I grabbed a coffee at a little-known mom-and-pop-shop Seattle coffeehouse called “Starbucks” and began working on my essay contribution to the current Theopolis Conversation on church-planting, answering emails, and drafting sermon notes for this past Sunday.

After an hour Fr. Joe McCulley picked me up [...]

Maui sermon notes

September 3, 2024 Mark Brians

This past Sunday I took the 6:19 am flight to Kahului to preach and celebrate Holy Communion at Kingsfield Anglican Church. They have their service at 10 AM and All Saints has ours at 4 PM so it allows me to be at both parishes in a single Sunday —which is both exhausting and incredibly life-giving.

This week I preached two different sermons: one on Mark 7 at All Saints and one on Acts 9 at Kingsfield (they’ve been going through the Book of Acts for a while now and so I jumped-in where they were in the series). Since the folks at All Saints didn’t get to hear the sermon, I thought I’d post one strand of reflections from my preaching notes:

September's Sunday schedule

August 27, 2024 Mark Brians

...I will travel to Maui in the morning to preach and celebrate Holy Communion at Kingsfield Anglican Church —a sister church of ours on Maui. The church-planter there, Fr. Jason, will be going on vacation at the end of this week and so Fr. Chris and I are both taking a Sunday for the next two weeks to cover for him.

After the service I will be catching the 1:40 PM flight back to Oahu where I will preach and celebrate at All Saints...

“I am the bread which came down from heaven”: Some follow-up notes on Sunday’s sermon

August 19, 2024 Mark Brians

To this teaching his hearers begin to argue and question amongst themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn. 6:52).

Their questions sound a lot like our own questions, perhaps. What does Jesus mean?

Particularly, we want to know what this means in light of Holy Communion, the meal we Christians keep until the Lord’s Return (1 Cor. 11:26). How does what Jesus says in John 6 about partaking in his flesh and blood, which he calls true food and true drink (Jn. 6:55), relate to the Meal which Jesus instituted by saying “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you” and “this cup is the new testament in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:24-25)?

What goes on at a vestry meeting?

August 13, 2024 Mark Brians

The “Vestry” is a term in Anglicanism for the group in the local parish which, together with the Rector (the head pastor, which at All Saints is myself) is charged with the “secular” affairs of the church: everything from the stewardship of our resources to our insurances, all financial matters, governance questions, fiduciary concerns, safeguarding policies, vacation days, bylaws, canonical conformity, etc.… you get the idea.

On appetite and education: notes from a talk given at the SBH parents night

August 6, 2024 Mark Brians

In film or television we often caricature “wisdom” by associating it with mystics, wizards; with wisened old crones who trace pentagrams with their fingers pointed to the stars, or scholars hovering over their libraries while beakers of glowing liquid boil in the background. And while I love most of the stories that contain these figures, these depictions do not quite capture the biblical idea. For “wisdom” or “a discerning heart” means more than mere fact-gathering, or esoteric knowledge —though it may appear like that at some moments.

Theopolis Travelogue

July 29, 2024 Mark Brians

Sunday 7/14/24

I depart Olivet Baptist Church during the chanting of the Creed (what a way to go out! I’m putting that in my notes for a good death: I’d like the Creed to be chanted over me as I lay dying) and head to the airport….

Joy is the thing that is really real

July 17, 2024 Mark Brians

There is, first, a kind of naivete —a not knowing innocence. Looking back on moments of naivete we often lend to them a happiness they did not actually possess, charged with nostalgia and sentimentality: “oh those were the good ole days when things were good” we say. And when we say this we imply a moment when things stopped being happy. The “when things were good” is followed by a “before [insert event] happened.”

Quick notes on the '9th Island'

July 9, 2024 Mark Brians

*photo courtesy of Grant Cai via unsplash*

I’ve been reflecting on a question posed to me late on Saturday evening by a member of the cast, the gist of which was whether I had been prepared for the overwhelming sinfulness of Vegas —the word used in the question was “sexiness.” I couldn’t help laughing, kindly I hope, at the question. I knew what he meant but had trouble articulating my answer. For I wanted to answer with a question that ran something like, “What sexiness?”

Da Blog

Sunday 7/14/24