The Peregrinating Parson

November 9, 1989, found me in my apartment on the Boston University campus watching the remnants of my teenage career plans go up in clouds of cement dust as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. I had thought that I’d have a career in the United States Navy as an intelligence officer, followed by an illustrious career as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) capped off with appointment as the United States Ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Never let it be said that I dreamed small. The Navy part went by the wayside when my eyesight proved to be so bad that—as I now know—even the broadest waivers wouldn’t allow me to pursue commissioning. At the time, there was a blanket “no waiver” policy thanks to the way that Tom Cruise made the military look glamorous in Top Gun . Ah, well, as the Army chaplain recruiter noted when I said you don’t have to be able to see to pray in a foxhole, you do have to be able to see to get out of one. When the Army says no, the

I love my country. I am honored and humbled to know that circumstances allowed me to be born here, the daughter of a US Army retiree, descendant of men who fought in the Continental Army in the American Revolution and on both sides (ugh) of the Civil War. My lineage includes whalers, farmers, teachers, musicians, slaveowners, and abolitionists. We have all valued our lives as Americans, the liberty afforded us as Americans, and been able to pursue happiness with minimal limitation. I was taught to value these principles for all people, and because of this, I value the lives of the men and women who put on the uniforms of our armed forces and volunteer to lose their lives for the freedoms granted to us by the Constitution, shaped as it was by the ideals underlying “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. I value the words of those who speak out against the worst devils of inhumanity that keep people from having those Constitutional rights; t

This is the manuscript version of the sermon I preached (without manuscript) on Sunday, June 16, 2019, at First Church of Christ, Congregational, United Church of Christ, North Conway, New Hampshire. I very likely said a few things that aren't here and didn't say a few things that are here, which is the nature of preaching in the style that I do! Psalm 8 (NRSV) O  Lord , our Sovereign,    how majestic is your name in all the earth!   You have set your glory above the heavens.      Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,    to silence the enemy and the avenger.   When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,    the moon and the stars that you have established;   what are human beings that you are mindful of them,    mortals   that you care for them?   Yet you have made them a little lower than God,    and crowned them with glory and honor.   You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;    you have p

Christianity is differentiated from its sibling faiths of Judaism and Islam by several key theological premises. The one that has caused the most difficulty for Christians through time is the notion that God became human and dwelt among us, not because the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is itself problematic but because we have had to maneuver around what it means that God became fully human for 2000 years. We don’t like to think about the carnality of human living when it comes to Jesus: what does it mean that God actually had a body with all its needs, wants, and oddities? The book Everyone Poops , so beneficial to parents doing potty training for at least a generation, does not lie. Jesus pooped. He no doubt got a stomach virus a few times in his life. He likely needed to blow his nose more than once in his life. And he undoubtedly had sexual urges.   That’s what it means to be a human being. But those who have dealt with the notion of Jesus as a sexual being holisti