liturgical year Archives - Debra Rienstra

Unless a Seed Falls: John 12:20-36

Even I have to admit, it looks terrible: broken, rotting stalks, bare dirt, no happy winged visitors. I tell myself there are over-wintering insects in there, that native roots are strong, that spring is coming. But right now: stillness, death.

Debra RienstraFebruary 24, 2024

liturgical year Pious Petunia silly

Pious Petunia Lifts Us Gently Over a Candy-Coated Lenten Threshold

Miss P recommends relaxed bemusement at the strained and unnecessary efforts of some Christians to claw back holy meaning for Ash Wednesday out of the lacey pink clutches of commercialized romance.

Debra RienstraFebruary 10, 2024

liturgical year poetry

Third Sunday in Advent: A Sestina

These candlelit evenings, ancient hope glimmers like a gift, gleams for a moment, then falters, slips to nothing in the circling of the year, our loves still unsteady, our roots still shallow, every promise a whisper of moth’s wings and still pending.

Debra RienstraDecember 16, 2023

liturgical year silly

An Inspiring Message about Palm Sunday

Wow, I didn’t know that Palm Sunday was about openness, inclusion, and tolerance. Something to reflect on, I guess. What about that donkey, shall we reflect on the donkey, too?

Debra RienstraApril 1, 2023

liturgical year silly

The Re-Gifts of the Magi: A Tiny Christmas Fantasia

A journey to who-knows-where to see who-knows-what without the proper supplies. We’re crazy.

Debra RienstraDecember 24, 2022

liturgical year spirituality

Advent in the Wasteland

I propose that Advent is the time when we are allowed—even encouraged—to be honest about our disappointment, our sadness, our cynicism.

Debra RienstraDecember 10, 2022

liturgical year nature

Jesus the Gardener

Believing in the resurrection of Christ is a little bit easier when you’re standing in the middle of a garden. Which may help explain the long tradition of depicting Jesus as a gardener.

Debra RienstraApril 6, 2022

liturgical year nature theology

Glory to God in the Lowest

The birth of the child is the focal point of God’s communion with the whole of creation. This is the deep wisdom of the doctrine of incarnation: the person Jesus is the crucial stitch uniting heaven and earth, spiritual and physical, entirely and forever.

Debra RienstraDecember 25, 2021

climate change liturgical year nature

Season of Creation Liturgy: An Interim Report

We are observing the Season of Creation for the first time this year, and as is our custom, we’ve put together our own liturgy. I’d like to report on how it’s been going.

Debra RienstraSeptember 25, 2021

liturgical year memoir pop culture

Adventures in TikTok and Teacher Brain

About a month ago—I’m not saying it was on Ash Wednesday, but it might have been—I downloaded the TikTok app on my phone.

Debra RienstraMarch 13, 2021

liturgical year

Unless a Seed Falls: John 12:20-36

Pious Petunia Lifts Us Gently Over a Candy-Coated Lenten Threshold

Third Sunday in Advent: A Sestina

An Inspiring Message about Palm Sunday

The Re-Gifts of the Magi: A Tiny Christmas Fantasia

Advent in the Wasteland

Jesus the Gardener

Glory to God in the Lowest

Season of Creation Liturgy: An Interim Report

Adventures in TikTok and Teacher Brain

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