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