Prairie Musings

You might think this is a strange post for a priest to write, but I think it is very important in this time of so much vitriolic rhetoric that Christians make a strong stand. The Book of James in the Bible has quite a lot to say about the power of our speech and the need for taming the tongue: If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile (1:26). The tongue is a small part of the body, yet it has great pretensions. Think how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze. And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell...It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters (3:5-6, ...

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light ” (Matthew 11:28-30). Weary…that’s a good word for what I’m feeling right now—how about you? Weary. Weary from the COVID-19 fight: weary from its social isolation, weary from the loneliness of not spending time with friends and family, weary from the worry and uncertainty and unpredictability of the spread of the disease, weary of the day-by-day grind. Weary, too, of the ever-escalating rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum: weary of the yelling and the violence and the threats, weary by our inability to find common ground and common purpose in our lives together in community. Just…weary.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites us, and all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, to come to him and find rest. Jesus offers u...

Zoom is optimized for voice, and it tries to be intelligent about silencing background noise. Unfortunately, it usually interprets instrumental music like a piano or guitar as background noise! Here are the instructions for when you want to do live music via zoom (for when you want to prevent zoom from trying to get rid of instrumental music because it thinks it’s background noise). Note that, depending on how much your everyday zoom meetings have background noise, you may want to put these settings back the way they were for M-F meetings, and change them only for a meeting with music like your Saturday/Sunday worship. (i.e. with the changes below, Zoom will no longer try to get rid of noise from someone running the vacuum cleaner in the other room when you're at home on Tuesday afternoon 😊) Step 1 - Open your zoom settings Step 2 – Go to Audio Settings Step 3 – Click on Advanced Settings Step 4 – (three changes) * Click “Show in-meeting option to Enable Original Sound… * Disable ...

June 14th, 2020   Lisa and the kids make fun of me because our house is sort of like that scene in Disney’s Fantasia in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment, where Mickey has stolen the magician’s hat and conjured up hundreds, maybe thousands of brooms and buckets to clean up the water, and they’re everywhere, out of control, running amok—only at our house it’s not brooms—it’s my books. They’re everywhere, out of control, running amok. I love books. One of my favorites I found many years ago at a used bookstore in Iowa. It’s called Crabb’s English Synonymes , and it was first published in 1816; my copy is the “new” revised edition from 1917. This book is not exactly a dictionary and not exactly a thesaurus; its goal is to explore the subtle and sometimes very important nuanced differences in words we commonly use in a similar way. I’d like to do that sort of exploration with you now. In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew chapter 9, we hear that “when Jesus saw the crowds, he ha...

(Guest Sermon by Rev. Marisa Tabizon Thompson) Year A, Trinity Sunday June 6-7, 2020 Each year we celebrate the Holy Trinity on the weekend after Pentecost. I am going to guess that it is the least popular preaching date for everyone – ministers and those who have to listen to us as we go through a set of mental gymnastics to try and explain the unexplainable. Three in one, one in three. Each distinct yet not divisible. Et cetera. I am going to skip all the heavy theology talk this year and instead try to paint a picture of duality within myself, because while it is not the same as the Trinity, there are some visible and experiential ways to think about how three make one and one makes three. About a week ago, I had the opportunity to make a recording for one of the virtual choirs you may have seen popping up lately. Dr. Sandra Montes, a force for good in The Episcopal Church through music, academia, and more, invited people to come together to sing, “Siyahamba.” Found in...

John Singer Sargent, The Frieze of the Prophets-West Wall Zephaniah, Joel, Obadiah, and Hosea  While Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’ (John 7:37b-38b).  Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them! (Numbers 11:29b) I look around me today, and I see an epidemic of thirst. There is a thirst to escape these times of quarantine and loneliness; a thirst for compassion and for a common understanding of truth and values; a thirst for visionary and compassionate leadership; a thirst for meaningful and fairly-compensated work; a thirst for justice. We are parched and withered, and maybe afraid that this drought leaves us vulnerable to the possibility of some sort of fiery destruction. Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, Jesus off...

In the Epistle this week, we heard: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). The theme of darkness and light, which is most often part of the narratives of Advent and Lent, is still much in my thoughts in these days. At the same time there are so many images and stories of heroism and deep compassion, there seems to be an equal number of incomprehensible images and stories of violence, selfish arrogance, and lack of compassion. Sometimes I feel like my psyche is roiling up and down in an ocean storm, from high to low. One thing in all this stands out for me with simple clarity: we need each other. I cannot care for the sick; I cannot research a vaccine; I cannot stock my grocery shelves; I cannot ranch, transport, and slaughter cattle; I cannot harvest wheat and grind flour. It is clear in this time of isolati...