Joan Chittister begins her book, The Gift of Years: Growing Old Gracefully with a description of a January morning off the coast of Western Ireland. It was a typical winter day, she writes, of rough seas, driving rains, and wind. But it wasn't typical for everyone. For on that day five fisherman lost their lives at sea.

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I’ve just returned from two days with many clergy of the diocese. We were together on the Eastern Shore, where we prayed, shared stories, and spoke of our dreams. The wondrous Ana Hernandez led us in song, filling our souls with beautiful refrains: My love is stronger than your fear; When we see Him, we will look like Him; I’m going to keep my little light burning, O my soul, because someone down the valley is trying get home.”

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There is a world of difference between resuscitation and resurrection. To be resuscitated, you come back from death essentially the same person. To know resurrection is to pass through death to a different new life.

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Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

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On Easter Sunday evening, as I drove back from saying goodbye to my mother at Union Station, I pondered the neighborhoods of Northeast Washington in light of resurrection. Had anything changed for the people I passed by? I thought of the women leaving Jesus' tomb after encountering him there, going back into their world, where nothing had changed.

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When resurrection happens, we may not know it at first, because the initial sensation is much like that of the death that preceded it. It isn’t death, but it feels like death in the same way that any new beginning confirms that the ending before it was real.

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As the biblical scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossin wryly observe, it wasn't because Jesus was tired that he told his disciples to find a donkey for him to ride the final stretch of his one hundred mile walk from Galilee to Jerusalem.

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We all have more than enough to do each day. And so a spiritual practice that isn’t about doing more, but having what we do count, feels like a balm in Giliad.

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Camp is a form of pilgrimage. Camp EDOW’s task force is made up of members from all 6 regions of our diocesan community whose lives were changed at a young age by a period of discomfort, dislocation, and intensity provided at a church camp.

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In a chapter devoted to the writings of St. Paul, Brian McLaren writes: “Practice (or exercise) does not make perfect, but it does make currently impossible things possible...."

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In Finding Our Way Again, Brian McLaren describes himself as a “Jesus-y” person at heart. I’m a “Jesus-y” person, too. He’s my way home.

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“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16

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As we discern God’s call to us as individuals and as a church, it’s good to remember that God calls us, thumbs and all.

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Many thanks to all who have written to me or posted on the diocesan Facebook page in response to my Washington Post On Faith essay.

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First, my deep thanks to all who gathered at the Diocesan Convention last weekend, and all those whose labors helped make our gathering meaningful.

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A young man stopped me after worship and asked if I believed in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Did I believe that things happened just as the story’s told, that somehow Jesus took the five loaves and two fish and multiplied them into a meal to feed thousands?

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A young man came to learn from a wise monk. Yet in the monk's presence, the young man sought to impress him with all that he already knew.

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People of the Way, a diocesan initiative to explore what it means to be a follower of Jesus as Episcopalian Christians, will begin in early March with a shared reading of "Finding Our Way Again," by Brian McLaren.

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If the idea of a diocesan-wide book club appeals to you, please take a moment to respond. Once we have a sense of how many are interested, we’ll begin the fun work of making it happen.

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"The life we are given to live must be loved, whatever it brings." -- John McQuiston, Always We Begin Again

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“Light your candles quietly, such candles as you possess, wherever you are.” – Alfred Delp

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"These are the stages to freedom from self centeredness, to humility, the centerpiece of the true life…." -- John McQuiston II

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“It is the small daily strokes that create the painting, no matter how large the canvas.” —John McQuiston II, Always We Begin Again

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"What is wanted is not that we should find ultimate truth, nor that we should become secure, nor that we should have ease, or that we should be without hurt, but that we should love. There is no fear in love. Therefore we should not fear life, nor anything in life; we should not fear death, nor anything in death; we should live our lives in love with life." -- John McQuiston II

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Periodically, I’ll suggest a book or other resource for our common reading as a diocese. During the season of Advent, I invite you to join me in reading "Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine way of Living," by John McQuiston II.

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