Tag: Detachment
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What If You Already Are Enough? – A Sermon On Mark 6:1-13
In the summer of 2000 Cyndy and I moved from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Sewanee, Tennessee, for me to attend seminary. A few months before we left Cyndy asked the wife of our priest about being a clergy spouse. “What’s it like being married to the priest?” she asked. Speaking about her husband, she said, Read more
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What Needs To Be Left Behind? – A Sermon On Mark 1:14-20
“Follow me,” isn’t only about going somewhere, it’s also about leaving behind. That’s the hard part for most of us. We’re pretty good at accumulating and clinging but not so good at letting go. More often than not our spiritual growth involves some kind of letting go. We accept Jesus’ invitation to follow, not by… Read more
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The Secret To Life – A Sermon On John 12:20-33
Seeing Jesus isn’t a spectator sport. It is a way to be followed, a truth to be embodied, a life to be lived. It’s being a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that it might bear much fruit. That’s where we see him. It’s the letting go, the emptying, the… Read more
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Lent with the Desert Fathers: Is it Yours?
A Word From the Desert “The same Abba Agathon was walking with his disciples. One of them, finding a small green pea on the road, said to the old man, ‘Father, may I take it?’ The old man, looking at him with astonishment, said, ‘Was it you who put it there?’ ‘No,’ replied the brother. Read more
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Lent with the Desert Fathers: Detachment and Simplicity
A Word From the Desert Abba Zosimos said, “In time, through neglect, we lose even the little fervor that we suppose we have in our ascetic renunciation. We become attached to useless, insignificant, and entirely worthless matters, substituting these for the love of God and neighbor, appropriating material things as if they were our own or Read more
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Unbinding and Letting Go of the Past
“If only….” “If only he hadn’t died.” “If only she hadn’t left.” If only I had made a different decision.” “If only I hadn’t said that.” “If only I had not done that.” “If only things were like they used to be.” I suspect all of us have, at some time, lived an “if only” Read more
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Expectations, Baggage, and God
Remember packing for the last trip you took? Suitcases, backpacks, bags. Sometimes packing can be the most stressful part of the journey. What did you take? What did you leave behind? Why did you take what you did? Most of us, I suspect, pack for our trips based on our expectations of where we are Read more
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Growing Up And Moving Home – A Sermon On Luke 2:41-52
The lectionary offers three options for the Second Sunday After Christmas. My parish will be celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. We used the Matthew option last year. So this year I choose Luke 2:41-52 as our gospel text. Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Read more
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The Last Anchorite
In a previous post I mentioned Father Lazarus, a hermit on the mountain of St. Anthony. His life is one of detachment, silence, and solitude. Those things are not about absence but rather presence. They are practices and ways of life that open us to the very heart of God. They are interior conditions that Read more
Interrupting the Silence 