From The Deacon's Bench

Our language contains many  homonyms, you know, two words that are pronounced the same way, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. This fact can lead to some confusion from time to time.   Two such words are Profit and Prophet.  For quite some time, I have thought about how these particular  homonyms are uniquely related.     Let me start by giving dictionary  definitions  of Profit and Prophet. Profit is  a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.  A more general definition is receiving something because of some action. Prophet is  a person regarded as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God. I believe that much of what we do in our lives is directly related to whatever our motivation is.  It is the answer to the question why did he or she do that?   So, with that in mind, when we m...

If we were playing a word association game and I said "search", I would be willing to bet that more people than not would respond with a word or words related to finding information on the internet.  I'm also pretty sure that if the word association game took place forty years ago, the "answers" would have been very different. However, I would like to focus on a different aspect of "searching".  With all that is going on in our world right now, I would like us to think about how we may be searching for answers to the question WHY.   Why are we seeing thousands of people suffering and dying  Why have our daily routines changed Why have so many people questioned science  Why have so many people ignored lessons learned in the past  Why have some been blinded to the fact that their unsafe actions may indeed have dire consequences I don't have any easy answers to most of those questions, and I'm not sure that there are indeed easy answers.  The answ...

Disappointment can be defined as sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one's hopes or expectations.  While this definition is fairly simple, the concept of  disappointment is  far more complex, because we tend to have various "levels" of disappointment.  We quite often are more or less disappointed in  ourselves, or for members of our families, or for close friends, or for strangers, or for adults, or for children, or for pets and so on and so on. Disappointment is nothing new.   Over and over again, as we read Holy Scripture, we see examples of disappointment.  We see humans "falling short of the mark" over and over again.  Think about Adam  and Eve... However, a close examination of the New Testament examples reveal that Jesus was never disappointed; how could He be, since He knew what would happen before it happened, and He knew that humans were flawed.     Because we are flawed humans, we quite often e...

  As I sat down to begin writing this month's blog entry, it was June 19th.  This is the first year that this day is a National Holiday in the United States.  This day has been called Juneteenth for many years, but I must admit that even though I studied history in college, the idea of Juneteenth and what it represented never made it into any of the lectures I heard or the textbooks I read.  As a result, when I taught American History, my students never heard of Juneteeth.  Here is an explanation that I recently read..."On June 19, 1865, U.S. Army Major General Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston, Texas, to announce that slavery had ended. At the time, many enslaved African Americans were unaware that Congress had passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, months earlier. The day of Granger's announcement is now known as "Juneteenth," "Emancipation Day" and "Juneteenth Independence Day."" For far too long, the reality of sla...

 In the Episcopal Church, it is normal to refer to the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost as Ordinary Time.  These two Church "seasons" are noted visually by the use of green altar hangings and green clergy vestments. Since we just celebrated Pentecost, we are in Ordinary Time, however...for well over a year there has not been ordinary times in our daily lives.  In fact,  Nothing has been ordinary.  We have had to and still must change the way we do almost everything in our lives. We have had to isolate ourselves; for some this might not be a change, but for most, social interaction is a basic function in our lives.  When we did not completely isolate, we have had to limit the number of others that we can associate with.  We have been forced to, dare I say it,  CHANGE...change how we do things, and that has included worship.   As a Deacon, I have some specific liturgical duties.  They are important and help defi...

I grew up hearing the phrase "enough is enough" over and over again.  Usually it said to my brother and me because we would be arguing or bickering or just annoying each other. Well, I'm ready to say "enough is enough" to all of those folks who continue to argue against wearing a mask or not getting vaccinated and the rush to "open up" things by allowing larger and larger crowds to come together.   We have been dealing with this pandemic for over a year now, I get it that people are tired of all the regulations but, the regulations have been working, the statistics show as the percentage of vaccinated individuals increases, the percentage of infections decreases. As Christians we learn how live our lives based on what Jesus would do and what Jesus would expect us to do.  Jesus tells us to love one another....show that love by being safe and encouraging everyone in your family and circle of friends to follow the safety protocols and get vaccinated. 

If we were playing a word association game, and if I said the word change, many people would think of the coins we get back from making a purchase.  But I'm not talking about that kind of change... I'm talking about that other kind of change... doing something differently We all know that change happens... You can fight it, but you can't stop it However, while change is a six lettered word, for many folks the idea of change is considered a "Four-Letter Word", in other words... a dirty word. Well, actually, it isn't the word itself that people don't like, it's the concept. For the past year, numerous changes have been made in what we do, or how we do it or if we will ever be able to do it again.   In order to keep people safe during the pandemic, changes have been necessary.  As time passes, it has become apparent that some of the things we have done in the past may never return in exactly the same way. For many people, while they may not like the chang...