Prayer

Through the run-up to the 1960 election our evangelical church pastor warned us repeatedly that if America elected a Roman Catholic president he would be taking orders from the Vatican. Catholics, he said, had to obey the Pope, so they weren’t like us Christians who acknowledged no authority but the Bible. He explained all this repeatedly to adult groups, to our youth group, and to the whole congregation gathered for Wednesday evening potluck (after we’d sung The Doxology but before he said grace over the meal). Whenever he’d say this, he’d also point out that he wasn’t saying it from the pulpit, which, he said, would have been bringing religion into politics the way Martin Luther King did; and no, we didn’t do that. Read more about Stories #1: Who gets to say who we sit with?

My Uncle Ted was a Presbyterian lay missionary in Cameroon. He wasn’t actually my uncle. He’d been married to my great aunt and she died in Cameroon. He was one of those “uncles” who redefine family, an old, old friend of my living grandmother and the grandfather I never knew, an avuncular teacher and inspiration to all of us. I was proud to claim him for a relative. Read more about Stories #2: Who calls us to the table?

Shortly after we welcomed Robert as a visitor to our fledgling congregation, he told me that we were welcoming him back to the Episcopal Church as well. It was early in San Francisco’s encounter with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Robert told me he’d spent some happy years in a Quaker Meeting, but when he’d gotten his diagnosis, felt he wanted more liturgy, holy words and action. Read more about Love is Listening::Listening is Love

I had been a priest for fifteen months, and was visiting my old friend Joe Doss who’d just recently been made the rector at Grace Church. New Year’s Day 1974. He asked me to preach and preside at a New Year’s Day/Holy Name of Jesus liturgy in the Grace Church’s chapel. I was hurting and confused. My marriage was coming apart and in dark moments I counted myself a failure as a priest and as human being. So I was deeply grateful for my friend’s invitation to preside... Read more about A Breath of Fresh Air