by Jennifer Hackbarth I miscarried very, very early after I became pregnant for the first time. For one brief evening, my husband and I were naively dumbfounded and excited by the potential of a new baby in our lives. The next morning, I began showing symptoms of a miscarriage. Within a few days, we knew [...]
Christ & Creativity
February 26, 2008 byLong Road Home: Music by Stacey Midge
by Stacey Midge We young clergy women are a multi-talented bunch. (Do you sculpt? sew? shoot photos? string words together? We want to hear from you.) You’ve read Stacey Midge’s witty articles for Single Rev’s Guide to Life. Did you know she is also a musician? Click below to hear her play "Long Road Home": [...]
Love the One You’re With (Er… Yourself)
by Ann Bonner-Stewart After services one Sunday, I walked into the sacristy to thank the altar guild for their work. The acting altar guild chair said those words we all long to hear: "Are you tired? Because you look really tired." I was, in fact, really tired. I hadn’t taken a day off in nearly [...]
Holy Housework
by Sarah Kinney Gaventa The work of Lent is something of a spiritual house-cleaning: whether it involves organizing a back closet, bringing out and discarding things that need to go, adding something beautiful to a room, making space for a new guest. Hard work, but it sounds so beautiful when it’s something done in your [...]
One Wedding… and a Funeral?
by Ann Bonner-Stewart I have this dorky parish clergy daydream. I like to imagine that as the years go by, all the different sacramental rites at which I’ve officiated or preached will blend together into a bizarre mélange of baptisms, communions, funerals, and weddings, so that I will no longer be able to remember in [...]
Did You Really Just Say That?
by Stacey Midge Ministers are often the recipients of odd and not entirely appropriate comments, so most of us get used to putting on our unfazed faces and playing along. However, there are limits. I have to admit that my professional poise slipped a bit when a leering photographer at a wedding I was officiating [...]
Whose Hair Is It, Anyway?
by Sarah Kinney Gaventa Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? (1 [...]
The Light of Christ
OK, so it was a cheesy children’s sermon anyway. Though most children’s sermons—or at least the ones I give—come that way, this was particularly so. But it was Easter—my first ordained Easter!—so amidst all the preparations for Holy Week services, and especially my much-anticipated Easter sermon, I grabbed the first half-decent object lesson I found. [...]