Rachel and I were talking with Trevor and Sierra and they told us that they had been watching the new “Penguin” series and that they were impressed with the quality of it. For those who don’t know, the series traces the rise of the batman villain Oswald Cobblepot, aka “The Penguin.” I thought I’d give the first episode a try when I found that my one-month trial prime membership allows me to access the show.
Read moreSt. Michael and the creepy things which haunt our sleep
I remember as a child having a season in which I was terribly afraid of nighttime. And I wasn’t young child, I was a nine or eleven year old —old enough to read and have my own bedroom. The strange thing is that these fears were not the result of being exposed to terrifying images: I was not allowed to watch horror films, most tv shows that aired at night, play Dungeons and Dragons, or even read things like Harry Potter. I was, in some sense, sheltered, like a little hobbit child of the North Farthing (arguably the safest part of the Shire). Where then did these phantoms, terrors, nightmares, and hauntings come from if not from the subconscious recollection of images to which I had been introduced?
The answer is terrifyingly simple...
Read moreSome changes in the Sunday liturgy
p/c Grant Whitty via unsplash
This Sunday, the Feast of Michaelmas, we will begin a few changes in our Sunday liturgy. And, additionally, we will have a few more musical changes in the months ahead. In what follows I want to give a brief forecast of those changes (with dates) as well as offer some explanation behind them —some answer to “why are we doing this?” As always what is posted here is in no way offered instead of conversation, but rather as a starting point for further questions and conversations. Please feel free to come to any of us on the lead team or pastoral team as questions arise.
Read moreIt was a hobbit hole and that means comfort
p/c Lucas Gruwez via unsplash
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?”
Read moreA wedding in Seattle
p/c: Zhifei Zhou via unspalsh
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 [...]
Read moreMaui sermon notes
p/c Lukas Souza via unsplash
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:
Read moreSeptember's Sunday schedule
p/c Andika Christian via unsplash
...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...
Read more“I am the bread which came down from heaven”: Some follow-up notes on Sunday’s sermon
p/c Wesual Click via unsplash
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)?
Read moreWhat goes on at a vestry meeting?
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.
Read moreOn appetite and education: notes from a talk given at the SBH parents night
“Rabbit” by Jeff Koons
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.
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