reverendjaneausten

  Returning to Transylvania Park is always a homecoming for us.   When you have two uncles who thrive on making their built-in-1900 home a place of ultimate welcome, there is no other way to feel about it.   I spent several Holy Week sojourns there when serving at Christ Church Cathedral.   In those spring days, the front upstairs bedroom was the guest room, and a veritable bower up in the arms of blooming trees.   Now, that room is smartly used as home office, [and this week, World War II War-game Central,] and the room we are in is equally welcoming.   The library is much as it has always been, and though perfect in any season it reigns at Christmastide.   There is often a roaring fire, and the generous tree skims the tall ceiling.   Cozy leather chairs invite you to sit a while, and books who have long ago become friends and family line the walls.   The house has always been friendly for us, but of course it is the people who live there who set that tone.   We were so privileg

  A Service of Advent Lessons and Carols is one of my favorite moments in the liturgical year.   I sang it in different choirs until I was ordained, and then read the parts designated for the Rector after becoming a priest. This year I got to do it all!   It was tremendously fun to sit with our choir for the whole service, to hear Julia on flute, and Chip at the organ, and to be warmly aware of our wonderful singing congregation.   Colin and Amelia joined Chip and Julia for a fun and surprising percussion session on the Advent processional.   There will be things we will tweak going forward, but for this moment, there is only gladness. Before going in, I reminded the choir (and the Rector!) in prayer that this was about praising God, not about performing.   As so often happens in this parish, the sum was even greater than the parts!   The Holy Spirit has a habit of showing up at Our Saviour and we often depart feeling more blessed than the reasons we might count. Perhaps that is why w

  Love this Parish I serve. . . It was a wonderful Sunday.   We had a beautiful Border Collie named Seabury for nearly a decade;   she was never trained formally, but she showed us her obstacle course agility in endless football games and military type maneuvers with our boys.   I think I channel some of that same energy on Sunday mornings these days, though perhaps with less agility —and with much less barking. The 8:00 service had a lovely amount of people, and some were back for the very first time.   Our chalice has had a tablespoon of wine in it for so many months, but the wine has now returned. The half full chalice caught me off guard as I lifted it, sending a tiny tsunami over the edge.   It could not have been much more than a tablespoon or two, (plenty remained,) but to my horror, it formed a small lake on the Corporal and Fair Linen.   My wonderful 8:00 Altar Guild person was doubling in the A/V Room, and she watched in slow motion as it unfurled on the video before her.   W

  Thanksgiving Reflections (Photo Credit Maggie McGill) Although our own Thanksgiving was quiet and serene, the real meal that centered our own holiday was the Advent I Eucharist.   It has been so hard to balance safety with hope, and we are not apt to ever be completely carefree again on that score.   But, as I preached this morning, there absolutely must be hope as well. Returning to some of our liturgical traditions on this first Sunday of Advent was tremendously moving for our congregation, but also for me as their priest. This morning was wildly distracting and compressed on the surface, (I love the happy chaos of our community,)   but so much more grounded than some of the Sundays during the past year and a half.   Part of it was offering both bread and wine to those who wanted it, but even more so it was the chance for more of us to participate in making the Eucharistic service come to life.   That is the heart of our community, and although it never departed, it was softly dimi

                          Homily for the Community Thanksgiving Service November 21, 2021 + Thanksgiving is all about serving others, rejoicing in what we do have, and finding love in gathering together.   It can be overly idealized, of course, and there is much good work being done to view our history more realistically.   But aside from tradition? We bring this on ourselves.   We imagine perfectly behaved toddlers, spouses and siblings loving one another without tension or disagreement.   We envision gorgeous table settings with heirloom pieces and beautiful flowers. We plan impeccably curated dishes that everyone will rave about;   we may even secretly dream that this will be the thanksgiving that goes down through the ages, sung as of old ‘ in memoriam .’   But even as we imagine those things, our doubt and anxiety creep in, pushing God to a less accessible place.   Which means that. . . we proceed to tie ourselves into knots with worrying.   We stress ourselves to the max over

  This morning offered one of those remarkable glimpses of God— the kind that you could never plan.   In fact, more planning might have obscured the gift entirely.     Some weeks ago, we began a mission with our next door church neighbors to work toward providing Thanksgiving boxes for those in our community who might otherwise not share in the blessings of this holiday.   We do this in the midst of realizing— via Sacred Ground —that the holiday we have long cherished brings only heartache and generational bitterness for others who share this planet.   But sharing love still seems the right thing to do, even as we are learning truths we were never taught.   Our church is historically very white; our neighbors are historically black.   Only a narrow ten foot alley separates us; it is way past time we got to know each other better.   Last year, even in the pandemic, we shared a Second Harvest give-away.   They had arranged it, and we offered our parking lot. It was a wonderful first enco

Shannon and I recently watched the film, “A Queen is Crowned.”   Some of us are familiar with this part of Queen Elizabeth’s story from the newer series, The Crown, that Prince Philip was instrumental in making sure that this event was available to the world. “A lavish documentary film of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation in 1953,” it is narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046222/ )   By the way, I researched it—the ‘Sir’ stands; he received that honor in 1947 from Elizabeth’s father. ( https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/KingsQueensofBritain/ ) What was great fun for us, in the same week in which we later celebrated the ‘Ending of a Pastoral Relationship’ with our retiring Bishop, was to marvel at how similar the Queen’s liturgy and our own movements within a service are. I never stand at an ancient throne and turn to the people in all four directions, but watching this film was just a delightful reminder of why so many Episcopalians are Anglophiles.

All Hallows Eve  It has been far too long since I have been with dinosaurs and super heroes and gleaming dragons.   It has been far too long since I have been with any group of happy children— or their adults, who were having nearly as much fun. Community matters.   We can say it doesn’t, but it is hard to ignore the feeling that a night like tonight gives. God created us to thrive in community, and we have been like flowers with too little water and sunshine. Our Hallowe’en neighborhood Trick or Treat granted us two hours on the front porch engaging with humans and dogs and, well   neighbors.   We have stayed in respectfully distant contact with those on either side of us, but tonight had my first feeling of almost pre-pandemic relief and joy.   We are not there yet, I know.   And I am being as patient as I am able to be.   But because we were outside, and there was a crisp wind and encounters were less than 20 seconds, (albeit nearly 100 of them!) it felt safe to be at arms length.

  It’s a beautiful, crisp, October day.   I am trying to write a homily for tomorrow, and all of the windows are open.   But all that I can manage to get onto paper is that there is nothing quite so distracting as a leaf blower at full volume.     FULL VOLUME.   This neighbor always wears his ear buds.   I have noise canceling ear phones on and they are not enough!   When it is coming from a neighbor, not only is the sound creating a major disturbance,   but the slippery sense of guilt also pervades.   “I should be doing that,” I fret. “When is the mulch going to get purchased, picked up and put down?”   Beneath our generous tree canopy, we have much non-turfed geography.   The leaves actually help with that, this time of year.   But today is supposed to be about writing because I can rarely get it finished before this Saturday moment in the week.   It is not my neighbor's fault.  Part of this is about the fact that my schedule is so different from that of those around me. And it i

    In the intervening time since my last post, I have been diligently pushing out a weekly column, From the Treehouse, for our church family.   That felt important during the Pandemic at its isolating height, but now we have returned to a crazier life, fraught with all of the anxiety Covid has brought, but missing the slower pace of the previous months.   I have been advised that people are now too busy to read those sorts of things,—and if my own inbox is any witness, I absolutely get it. I have been pondering this culture of ‘both/and’ that has pervaded keeping a church going in these challenging times.   Many things have two sides.   Streaming our services means those immunocompromised folks in our parish family can still stay connected, which is something we absolutely desire.   But it also means that those who might choose to return to church in person instead select an easier route.   I imagine them staying home in their jammies, with coffee and a croissant or panne de chocolat