Teenagers often believe that they are the first humans ever to have discovered sex. The world-altering swells of feeling and emotion—or the seeming opposite of being let down by the whole experience—feels as revolutionary to each of us as any human walking on the moon.
We were standing in front of an overflowing trash can in the neighborhood “fast-food chicken” franchise. It took me a moment to register my son asking me the question. I’d been daydreaming and lost in thought.
Ever since I returned to the church in my twenties, I have been inspired by the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The plague hit our family vacation hard this summer. It was a punishing stomach bug that took down young and old and came back for more.
Title: Experiments in Minivan Christian Formation, based on a true story
As a dad of two daughters, I have a lot of feelings about today’s feast day for Mary and Martha of Bethany.
Today marks the feast of Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary and the grandparents of Jesus. They don’t appear in canonical scriptures; lacking source material, generations of Christians have looked for them in themselves.
Terrified women share an experience with men they trust, but the men don’t believe them. They say the women are lying. One of these women in particular is publicly shamed and labeled with the slanderous reputation of being a prostitute.
Today our church celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. It’s always been an interesting feast day for me. Typically feast days commemorate the entire lives of saints. They get a singular day to mark their births, the miracles and ministries they performed while alive, and ultimately their deaths.
Today, June 19, we remember Adelaide Teague Case, who died seventy-one years ago. “An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church” tells us that Dr. Case was “the first woman to be appointed to full professional rank in an Anglican seminary.” She was a theologian, librarian, professor, and writer, but she lived at a time before women could be ordained in the Episcopal Church.
