A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

Our little girl is learning how to smoke and use a cell a phone. What next?

In her book, Amazing Grace, author Kathleen Norris learned about waiting and about silence when she visited classrooms in North Dakota. She asked the students to sit still and to be as silent as possible – to listen, and not to make a sound. She then asked them to write about what they experienced in the silence. “It’s scary,” one fifth grader wrote. When Norris asked him why, he said, “It’s like we’re waiting for something – it’s scary.” Another child, a third grade boy, wrote that his quiet time made him think about being strong. Strength, he said, is “as slow and silent as a tree.” One little girl said this: “Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.” In the cacophony of sound that surrounds us constantly, we rarely “have time” to be silent, we rarely “have time” to listen to the still small voice of God in our hearts. Which begs the question, where exactly, is our soul? Advent is a time of preparation, what does that mean for us? What are we preparing f...

I know I wrote this somewhere else, but I can't seem, oh yeah, it was my last weekly email, that was it. Anyway, I was struck the other day, when a certain clergy person made the distinction between WITNESS and EVANGELISM. We talk in the Episcopal Church left and right about how bad we are at Evangelism, and it turns out we are, but not because we don't want it. Well, that may still be the case, as we tend to value small family congregations over larger ones. Anyway, this clergy person, which I find myself surprised to be agreeing with, talked about how Evangelism is a particular spiritual gift. Not everyone has the gift of evangelizing. I think we could say fairly well, that, also, much to my surprise, I have a particular gift of evangelism, it is something I love to do, get people to come to Church. The problem is that I am the priest, and then it becomes expected that I will be the one getting people to Church. Anyway, I digress, not everyone has the gift of evangeli...

So tomorrow night we are celebrating our 150th anniversary here at the Church. I have had trouble getting any energy to focus on this event because I want to be sure we will actually make it to our 155th. Being a new church start in an old church has been a hard sell lately in the Diocese. I think people have generally forgotten that we are trying to do something new here at the Church, not renew the old standards and practices of a time long gone. In the midst of the work of the BCMS, the Bishop's Commission on Mission Strategy, I am finding it more and more important that we try to keep the focus on doing a new thing here at the Church, creating a community that recognizes God has a mission for God's people, and we are privileged to participate with God in that mission. That we are a people sent by God, and not sending God to others. We have uncovered behaviors and values that we hold as a Diocese that prevent us from seeing ourselves as a sent and missional people as a ...

The Rev. Aron Kramer Advent 1 December 3rd, 2006 How many of you have heard the story of Charlie and the MTA as told by the Kingston Trio? The chorus of the song goes like this: “Did he ever return? No he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned. He may ride forever beneath the streets of Boston; he’s the man who never returned.” You see, Charlie needed one more nickel in order to get off the train and because he didn’t have it, he was stuck forever, or until he paid, on the MTA. It is another of my favorite songs, I love the Kingston Trio in particular, and this song is sort of an advent song, a song of waiting, a song of anticipation, what will happen to Charlie, will he ever return or is he forever lost to us? Advent is a time of waiting, it is a time of anticipation, I have never really figured out what that meant, it has in the past been a penitential time, not on par with Lent, but penitential none the less. They way I understand Advent is that we are in the time...

My head has been underwater the last few weeks, to the point that even my sermons are not written down. Do you know how scary it is for me to do a planned off the cuff sermon? Anyway, the next posting is my sermon from today. Thanks for your patience! Be well, A+