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liturgical year

liturgical year

The Problem with Palms

Let’s admit it: Palm Sunday is a problem. I know I shouldn’t be questioning a moment in the church calendar that goes all the way back to the third or fourth century, but why do I always vaguely dread this day?
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March 23, 2013
liturgical yearmemoirUncategorized

February Blahs

If for some reason you wish to study that peculiar state of human existence called “the blahs,” I suggest you begin in the third week of February in Michigan. It’s been winter for as long as we can remember here, and we still have a…
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February 23, 2013
liturgical yearspirituality

Thin Places

The Transfiguration story speaks to that part of us that longs for the mountain-top experience—for the epiphanic moment when, even for an instant, we perceive through the veil of clay to the numinous glory beyond. If only we could find a thin place, maybe we…
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February 9, 2013
liturgical year

A Week of Saints

Last night St. Hildegard of Bingen visited Calvin College. She sang, accompanied by a plucked psaltery, or by a handheld harp, or by a fancy wooden box that she cranked to create an otherworldly drone. She told us that she was worried about people of…
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November 3, 2012
liturgical yearspirituality

The Long Slog

Maybe we are kidding ourselves. That outburst of Spirit-energy we managed to whump up on Pentecost is tough to maintain, especially for your average, mild-mannered Reformed congregation. Maybe we should admit that what we’re really facing starting the Monday after Pentecost is ordinary time, the…
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June 30, 2012