Category Archives: reflection

On Leaks and Parishes…

31 Thursday Jul 2025

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Photo credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly. Reuse with permission only.

Last week at our church we discovered a leak in our parish house that necessitated saws, hammers, and very loud industrial fans.  By Friday, the constant noise broke my patience and I decided I needed to find an alternate place to work remotely – maybe not a place of silence, but certainly a change of scenery.  I landed in two different eateries/coffeehouses and decided to publicize my “remote office.”

What I found was people visiting from out-of-town I did not know were here, parishioners running errands, happy for an open ear, and lots of gratitude for being invited into the shared experience – both from church members and non-members alike.  The experience reminded me why Episcopal Churches are often referred to as “parishes.” Once upon a time, Episcopal churches served a geographic region, or a parish, and the priest was sort of the neighborhood priest.  Doing my work and meeting people where they are – whether they are from my actual church or not, reminded me of the original intention or churches:  that their priests were for the good of the entire community, not just the members.

Archbishop William Temple is attributed with having once said, “The Church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”  At our church, we often talk about our mission being simultaneously about those inside our walls and those outside our walls.  That’s why we are doing some big things of late:  developing a third worship service designed specifically for people who are not a part of our community; forming a team who will look at alternative uses of our property that are missional and community-facing; and establishing small groups for spiritual formation that meet off campus – in homes and places of everyday “parish” life.  If we truly believe Archbishop Temple, then our clergy sitting in coffeehouses and eateries should more often be the norm than the crisis-driven exception.

Being out in the “parish” is not just the role of the priest.  I wonder how you are taking your faith, your worship community, your church out into the world.  When was the last time you asked a friend about their spiritual health (in the same way you would ask them about their physical or emotional health)?  When was the last time you were listening deeply to another person’s story and were willing to offer where you saw God in their story?  When was the last time you invited someone to church – not necessarily to the building on Sunday at a certain time, but into the experience of “church” that has been so transformative for you?  I cannot wait to hear about how you can envision taking your church out into the parish!

On Seeing Joy…

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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Photo credit: https://www.kcresolve.com/blog/why-joy-is-scary

Those who have young children, or are friends with families with children, know that a big part of parenting is running your kids to activities – sports, dance, music, or whatever other passion the kid has (or the parent wants them to have).  The more children there are, the more running and coordinating there seems to be.  When I talk to most parents, that shuttling and coordinating is something that occupies big spaces in their brains and emotional energy – myself included!

These next two weeks, our family is in the thick of that mode of being with our little one.  She has started a fun summer day camp, her dance recital is this weekend (the culmination of a year of work), and next week she gets to do a half-day basketball camp and start summer cello lessons with a beloved teacher.  My normal response to such a load is feeling overwhelmed by the details.  But this week, I have had an odd sense of objectivity about it all.  Over the course of two weeks, this kid will get to experience all the things she loves in life:  play, dance, basketball, music, and relationship.  I have been marveling at how awesome it is to have so many soul-feeding things in such a short span of time.  It is like a concentrated dose of joy-making and I find myself getting to bask in the glow of her happiness.

Watching this special time for her has made me wonder how we are structuring our own busy calendars.  Summer is often a time of special trips and adventures.  But I am not sure what is calling to me is the planning of extraordinary things to fill our hearts.  Instead, what I sense is calling me is to name the extraordinary in the ordinary life I have crafted for myself.  If I value relationships, how are those relationships feeding me right now?  If I value the health of my body, how am tending to my body?  If I feel enlivened when I am rooted in God, how am I connecting with God these days?

I wonder what ways the Holy Spirit is calling you into joy through the abundant gifts surrounding you.  I wonder what beautiful things in your life you have been remiss in giving gratitude for lately.  I wonder if this week, you might take out that planner, or calendar, or set of sticky notes on the fridge, and start reframing those things that feel like obligations as things that God has gifted you for your joy.  I cannot wait to hear where you are finding abundance!

On the Risk of Anticipation…

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

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Photo Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/tango–761882461966749050/

So, what does a Dancing with the Williamsburg Stars competitor do after the competition?  Well, in my case, you get back in the studio!  Before the competition even began, I already knew I wanted to keep dancing.  I was having such a great time stretching my mind and body learning new things that I knew it was a good physical, and spiritual, discipline I wanted to maintain. 

Now, you may be wondering how in the world ballroom dancing can be categorized as a spiritual discipline.  The truth is, I encounter the sacred in ballroom dance all the time.  I talked about it once before HERE.  This week, as I started my first post-competition class, we went back to basics, learning the rumba and cha-cha.  There’s a certain humbling that comes with learning a new dance that I had forgotten from when I started months ago.  As we progressed through the class, I felt like I was slowly getting the hang of the technicalities – that is, until we started turns.  At one point, my instructor said, “Stop anticipating!”  He reminded me that he would show me where to go, but if I anticipated what he was going to do next, I would mess up our unique dance.

Those two words have been rattling around in my head.  Stop anticipating.  You see, I am a planner by nature.  Anticipation is my jam.  I am constantly thinking ahead, wondering about decision trees and the potential impact of each branch.  I like thinking about the larger system and strategically guiding my parish in our next steps.  So, the idea of stopping anticipation seems anathema. 

But the more I thought about it, every good thing that has come about in my ministry was nothing I actually anticipated.  In my current parish, I might have conducted a needs assessment with the community, listened to my parish’s desires, and researched a particular new ministry.  But what I didn’t anticipate was an outside group needing space to do the exact ministry we were contemplating.  I might have envied other parishes with digital ministries, but what I never anticipated was a worldwide pandemic that would launch my church’s own digital ministry.  I might be dreaming with my parish about alternative revenue streams and the repurposing of our spaces, but what I didn’t anticipate was three conversations that fell into my lap in the course of three weeks about potential partnerships.  When I finished the planning and stop anticipating, God happened each time.

I wonder in what ways your anticipation is blocking the movement of the Holy Spirit.  In what ways are you anticipating a left-hand turn, only to discover, God is over the to right, ready for you, if you can just stop anticipating?  For those of you who are lifetime planners, I know this is hard spiritual work.  Perhaps this Lent, you can join me in my prayer, “Lord, help me stop anticipating.” 

On Ashes and Dust…

05 Wednesday Mar 2025

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Phot credit: https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/pipeorgan/maintenance/

Last year our parish was donated a new pipe organ.  We have been eagerly waiting for the deconstruction of our current organ and the installation of the new one.  The time has finally come, we said a prayer of blessing on the current organ, and we have been waiting and watching as the process begins.  Ideally this wouldn’t be staring just days before Ash Wednesday, but I suppose there is no “perfect” time to deconstruct your worship space.

Knowing we are in a liminal time of deconstruction and reconstruction, I had not thoroughly thought through the impact this time would have on our experience of Ash Wednesday.  But walking into the Chapel this morning, seeing the pipes mostly gone, and the guts of our current organ exposed, I was hit by a sadness I couldn’t quite place.  Almost 20 years of music from that organ has filled our worship space, countless talented individuals have made the organ sing, and even more moments of sacred encounters with God have happened through that instrument.  Seeing the organ exposed today did something that left me unsettled. 

Photo credit: https://annkroeker.com/2011/03/09/there-back-again-my-first-ash-wednesday/

When I necessarily turned my attention to preparing for tonight’s Ashes to Go and Ash Wednesday service, I realized what was so unsettling.  Ash Wednesday is all about reminding us of our mortality, our finitude, and our vulnerability before God.  When those gritty ashes are scraped across my forehead and I am told that I will return to dust, that texture and those words linger with me.  So too, as that organ case sits gaping and open, with dust motes floating in the air, our worship space has suddenly become the perfect metaphor for entering a Holy Lent.

I wonder what gaping holes Ash Wednesday is exposing for you.  I wonder where your spiritual life is feeling dusty and in need of some care.  As always, you are most welcome to engage at Hickory Neck Episcopal Church for some tending – to find a connection with God that might be missing, to heal some holes that have been exposed for too long, and to find a place of belonging, because, believe me, you are not alone.  Welcome to Lent.

Photo credit: Stephen Trumbull; reuse with permission only

On the Dance of Trust…

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Photo credit: World Class Ballroom

In a little over a week, I will be competing in my town’s version of Dancing with the Stars – where 12 of us local “stars” are paired with professional dancers and perform our routines in a ticketed show.  The event is for charity, hoping to raise about $60,000 for our local Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliate and Literacy for Life.  When I was asked to be a star this year, I was excited.  I loved the idea of supporting local ministries, of a clergy person doing something so outside the box, and the fun of dancing.

Naively, I thought years of dancing in childhood and adolescence would be a big help.  I took ballet, tap, and jazz all through my school years – even taking a little ballet in college.  I was on dance teams in high school and college, doing hip hop style dancing.  And I even took a “Social Dance” class in college meant to teach you the basics of ballroom dance.  Consequently, I was fully expecting to learn and execute my routine with relative ease.

What I hadn’t accounted for in my mental preparation was what dancing with a partner would mean.  Of course, I knew that, as a female, I would need to let the male lead – and I also knew that would be hard based on previous experiences.  It can be hard to trust someone who also doesn’t know what they are doing.  But I had assumed dancing with a professional would make the trust part easier.  That was until a lesson recently where my teacher basically told me that I needed to fall forward in a particular position – with the promise he would catch me.  When I gave him an incredulous look, he explained that if I tried to catch myself, I would make him fall.  But if I just fell, he would catch me and the move would look dramatically graceful.

I have loved getting to know my teacher and have no reason not to trust him – he’s incredibly talented and has been doing this for ages.  But my resistance to trusting my teacher has given me a lot of insight on how deeply demanding trusting God is.  God has proven to us time and again how God is holding us, caring for us, bringing us to the right places at the right time.  And yet, every time something gets scary or unfamiliar, we yank that trust right back.  I suppose that is why we hear that refrain in Scripture, “Do not be afraid,” so often – because being unafraid is really hard.

I wonder in what ways you are holding back your trust in God these days.  I wonder how often you are unwilling to “fall,” expecting something dramatically graceful, and instead limiting God’s grace by your resistance to giving up control.  Letting go will not be easy – God wouldn’t have to tell us to not be afraid so much if letting go were easy.  But imagine the beautiful dance you could produce if you could reach out your hand and instead say, “Here I am.  Send me.” 

You can help me “let go” by making a donation to the amazing charities we are supporting.  Click HERE to donate today and make a difference in the lives of others.

On Seeing Christ in Neighbor…

04 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/open-door

This week, I realized I was internalizing some stress.  It feels a bit silly upon reflection, but I’ve been in my head about family, work, and personal obligations.  Somehow, we’ve managed to be even more busy than normal this Advent – so much so that I have had to call in favors to help with shuttling children to ensure everyone is able to meet their obligations.  It is entirely a first-world problem to have, and yet it brings with it such mental labor that I find it much harder than normal to be centered and grounded this year.

One of the challenges of being off-center in Advent is that our minds are so filled with the details of life that we fail to notice God’s presence around us.  The mental labor of life can leave little room for sacred whispers.  This Advent, I am using a book of meditations by Dietrich Bonhoeffer as my spiritual practice.  In one meditation, Bonhoeffer says this of Jesus, “He confronts you in every person that you meet.  As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.  That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message.   Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us.”[i]

I wonder what appearances of Jesus through others are you missing this Advent?  How might you share some of that mental labor, or what things can you leave undone, so that you can see God more clearly?  My daughter helped me with this one this past week.  We hustled around to purchase Angel Tree gifts for some families our church had adopted.  I asked her to load the donation bags as the final step.  When I put the filled bags into the hallway by the front door, I noticed an extra slip of paper in the bag.  My daughter had made a card to go with her gift.  She had not just seen the purchasing of gifts as a good thing to do.  She thought of the little girl, who needed a coat, who wanted a few toys, who wore a certain size of clothes and shoes.  Where I saw a task, she saw a person – she saw Jesus.  My prayer is that you can see Jesus this week too.

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger:  Reflections on Advent and Christmas (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 2.

On Blooms of Hope…

13 Wednesday Nov 2024

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Photo credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; permission required for reuse

I have written before about how I am not good with plants.  If the term “brown thumb” was invented for anyone, it was likely me.  I have been known to even kill a cactus.  I am so resigned to this reality that when someone gifts me a potted plant, even one with blooms already on it, my immediate reaction is guilt about how short a life the plant can expect in my care.

So, imagine my surprise when a similar gift from last Christmas, a Christmas cactus, began blooming today.  I was so shocked, that I went online to learn about the plant’s blooming practices.  It was in this research that I learned I have been doing everything wrong.  The research says the plant should never be in direct light (it is sitting in the full blast of the sunrise every morning); it says you should only water the plant when the top two inches are dry (I am pretty sure I water it weekly no matter what); and it says the plant should be kept in a cool, humid space (nope, and nope).  So, despite all my mistakes, despite how this plant should likely be dead by now, here this cute plant is blooming for the first time. 

That plant has reminded me of two things today.  First, that plant has reminded me of the ways that God can work for good despite me.  I do not have the gifts, interest, or time to lovingly help plants thrive.  But God has taken my measly offerings – the occasional remembrance to water the plant without any recollection how long ago I watered it last, the guilt that has kept me from throwing the plant away before now, and the half-hearted attempt to at least give the plant sunlight – God has taken these offerings and transformed them not just to survival, but to thriving.  I am humbled by a God who can produce good despite me.

Two, I am also struck by the fact that this plant is just one tiny example of the small goodness that surrounds us all the time.  The last week has been a rough one, especially in a congregation and a community that is very “purple” politically.  Though we are quite civil with one another, emotions have been all over the spectrum and I have been struggling to see where the hope is.  But the truth is hope and goodness have been around me this whole time.  I certainly see hope in this plant who is thriving despite me – and looking quite beautiful, indeed.  I see hope in the ways people are caring for one another – asking how people are really doing, and finding ways to offer solidarity and comfort where possible.  And I see hope as parishioners increase their giving to the church in a time when budgets are stretched and prices are rising.  We could find counter arguments for all those instances – reasons to be wary or suspicious or doubtful.  Or we can choose to notice the blooms opening slowly all around us.  I am not entirely sure what God is doing these days, but I have to tell you, I feel confident that God is here, bringing us comfort and signs of hope.  And that will suffice for today.

On Measuring What Matters…

09 Wednesday Oct 2024

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Photo credit: https://texasleansixsigma.com/measure-what-matters/

This week we’ve been working intentionally on shifting my daughter’s propensity to complain.  She can have the best of days or afternoons, but at some point in the retelling of what happened, she’ll inevitably find something to complain about – what someone said, what someone did, or how she perceived something.  This week I threatened to start a daily tally of everything that came out of her mouth, putting her words in two columns:  positive things and negative things.  I told her we would see which column won at the end of the day.  I was honestly making an empty threat (who has time to monitor every word that comes out of a kid’s mouth?!?), but something about my threat registered with her.  The next morning, she was all positives – thanking me for mundane things, celebrating small victories, noticing the good.  When I picked her up from school that day, she proclaimed, “Actually, today’s been a really good day!”  We celebrated what a wonderful experience both she and I had had that day, noticing what her intentionality had done.

I’ve been thinking about our experiment and have been recalling all the times I have taken on a discipline of gratitude – all the times I have fallen into the very same patterns as my child.  There have been times when I have used my prayer beads, only praying prayers of thanksgiving instead of petition.  There have been times when I have used my journal to find at least three things at the end of the day for which I can give thanks (some days that was harder than others!).  And there have been times when I have read books or heard testimonies about the powerful transformative practice of gratitude.

These last weeks, gratitude has been challenging to come by.  I have been watching helplessly as countless homes, businesses, churches, roads, and whole towns have been washed away by hurricanes – only to be bracing for the impact of another one today.  I have been praying with friends and community members recovering from freakish events:  being hit by car, road rage gun violence, and random violent targeting.  I have listened to the anxieties of parishioners, completely consumed by worry about the presidential election less than a month away. 

This Sunday, our church will kick of stewardship season, as we ponder what really matters in our lives.  As we have already been reflecting this year, we are a community blessed with abundance.  We could certainly go down the road of scarcity, detailing all the things we are longing for or missing.  But instead, we are entering an intentional time of noticing:  noticing the abundance around us, noticing the blessings that embrace us, noticing the goodness and love of God in our lives.  I am looking forward to the gift of a season of gratitude – of celebrating the good and honoring the abundance of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I am hopeful that each day in this stewardship season, we can begin to turn our hearts from pain, and find the way, even if in something miniscule, to be able to say, “Actually, today’s been a really good day!”  I invite you to join us in the celebration of what matters!

On Looking for Helpers…

02 Wednesday Oct 2024

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Photo credit: https://www.power-grid.com/der-grid-edge/electric-vehicles/midamerican-rolls-out-three-all-electric-utility-bucket-trucks/#gref

Last week I was on retreat in western North Carolina.  We were east enough that Hurricane Helene mostly dealt us wind and rain, and we only lost power and water for about seven hours.  But as we prepared to return home, the news was trickling in that the impact further west was bad – inconceivably devastating.  As I headed east making my way home, signs indicated the highway I was traveling was completely closed in the other direction and that all travel to western North Carolina was forbidden.

On the sobering home drive, as I contemplated all who were suffering and how mostly unscathed I was, a familiar sight appeared:  a line of electric company trucks driving westward.  Having grown up mostly in NC and having been on Long Island during Superstorm Sandy, I felt that familiar overwhelming sense of relief when you see those trucks after a storm.  Help was on the way.  Trucks with their workers from all over the place were dropping everything in their lives to offer up the gifts God gave them to help others.  I knew those in western North Carolina would feel a similar palpable relief to see those glorious white trucks, and I offered a prayer of thanksgiving. 

Fred Rogers used to say, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’”  No matter how much we bemoan our divisions and the political toxicity in our country, it is the helpers that give me hope.  That line of white trucks was a reminder to me that goodness is all around us, even when hopelessness feels like it may drown us. 

I wonder what signs of hope you might be able to spy this week – what glimmers of light are breaking through the clouds if you open your eyes.  Or perhaps the Holy Spirit is beckoning you to be a helper – to be one of those signs of hopefulness in the ways that only you can.  I cannot wait to hear the stories of how God is showing up and birthing hope.

On Actively Remembering…

11 Wednesday Sep 2024

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Photo credit: https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/sept-11-attack.html

The anniversary of September 11, 2001 is always one that hits me in unexpected ways.  For those of us living at the time twenty-three years ago, our experiences that day are as varied as our humanity is varied.  Depending on how close you lived to the three crash sites, whether you lost a loved one or waited long days for them to be found, what your ethnicity is (as those of Middle Eastern heritage had very different experiences that day and in the weeks and months to follow), or what your philosophy of justice was, our reactions to, experiences of, and the aftermath of that tragic day affects us all differently.

Despite those deeply varying differences, one thing always seems to be consistent on this anniversary – we remember.  Maybe we spend time in prayer, or maybe we dedicate some time to silence, or maybe we take a long run, or maybe we burn off steam another way, but all of us in some way or fashion remember.  As you remember this year, I invite your reflection to be active.  There were countless people on that day who did something good for someone else – whether they helped someone out of a burning building, comforted a friend, searched through rubble, helped a stranger search for someone lost, made a meal for someone, or even made the ultimate sacrifice so that others might live.  Use those stories and those memories of goodness that punctuated a day of awfulness to be a force for goodness today – to be an agent of Christ’s love in a world that desperately needs love.  If you’re looking for motivation, you can find stories here.  If you’re looking for a prayer, you can try this resource. 

Even twenty-three years out, this day carries with it so much weight.  I can’t wait to hear what you do to lighten some of that burden for someone else or yourself.  Today we can be a part of shining Christ’s light in the darkness in our time.