CATHY WARNER
  • Home
  • Books
  • Photos
  • About
  • Writing
  • Blog
  • Classes & Events

The Sending of the 70, Again

9/19/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
A reflection on Luke 10 for St. David of Wales, July 3, 2022

Three years ago, I had the opportunity to preach on this gospel passage. It was my fourth message for St. David’s, and I must admit, reading back on what I shared with you then as I tried to imagine myself in the shoes of the 70 sent out by Jesus, I was a little obsessed with not being able to take my giant purse and all its creature comforts, as well as how I was going to eat when people were going to try to poison me with gluten.

Three years later, believe it or not, this is my 34th message at St. David’s. In those three years I’ve come to know this faith community better; I’ve come to know our wider community better; and my faith has continued to grow as I deepen my relationship to the Episcopal faith and to this beloved community.

When I preached on this originally, I approached it from the context of a modern-day believer reading literally, trying to figure out what all these instructions meant for me in the 21st century. I don't know if I failed to consult a commentary or any other resources to get some biblical background information or if I just followed my mind down a rabbit hole.

Read More
0 Comments

Pentecost Flames

9/19/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
A message for the community of St. David of Wales, June 2022.

I used to love Pentecost and the images of fire, the tongues of flame hovering over the disciples’ heads. I wrote poetry about the hot breath of God on our faces, the spirit scorching our hair and singeing off our eyebrows and throwing us into the street chased by tongues of flame.

Back then, I was a stay-at-home mom, a classroom volunteer, a Sunday school teacher with a tiny life and small circle of influence, who had just felt a call from God to write as a form of ministry. I found myself on fire for God in ways that burned up all my earlier doubts and fears about being the right kind of believer. And the idea of Pentecost coming to set us on fire, to clean us to bone and sinew, felt absolutely right as I opened myself up to new bold ways of being in the world.

That was more than twenty years ago, when the worst thing I could imagine happening to my children in their classrooms was contracting head lice, not being fired upon. That was decades before COVID trapped us all in our own houses for months, long before I understood systemic racism and my privilege as a white woman.


Read More
0 Comments

I've Never Called This Day Good

9/19/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
A message for the community of St. David of Wales on Good Friday, April 15, 2022.

I confess that I have never wanted to call this day “good,” that the crucifixion leaves me heartbroken, despite knowing what comes next. I have imagined, time and again, a different story that didn’t require death.
 
Each year as our Holy Week journey takes us closer to the cross, I have hoped against hope that just this once, events would unfold differently, that history would be rewritten, that the powers of church and state would surrender themselves to the radical power of love that Jesus professed and embodied.
 
I have wanted alternative scriptures where, having fully instituted God’s will on earth as in heaven, Jesus retires to Galilee, resumes carpentry, marries, raises a family, and lives to a ripe old age.

Read More
0 Comments

Return to the Return of the Prodigal Son

9/19/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
A Message on Luke 15: The Parable of the Prodigal Son for the community at St. David of Wales, March 27, 2022
 
In the New International Version, and many others, this morning’s lesson from Luke is titled “The Story of the Lost Son.” In the Expanded Bible it’s “The Son Who Left Home.” The New Testament for Everyone labels it, “The Parable of the Prodigal: The Father and the Younger Son.” In the Contemporary English Version, the title reads “Two Sons.” And finally, the New Revised Standard Version follows suit with “The Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother.”

​No matter how we refer to it, this longest of Jesus’ parables which appears only in Luke’s gospel, has resonated deeply over the centuries, perhaps more than any other story Jesus told. And it still speaks to us in circles far beyond the church. Even as a secular child, I’d heard of the prodigal son—and even without knowing that the word prodigal (it’s something like recklessly wasteful), I knew the son was up to no good.

Read More
0 Comments
    Picture
    I began blogging about "This or Something Better" in 2011 when my husband and I were discerning what came next in our lives, which turned out to be relocating to Puget Sound from our Native California. My older posts can be found here.

    Categories

    All
    Memoir
    Photography
    Poetry
    Sermons
    Wildlife
    Writing

    Archives

    December 2024
    October 2024
    September 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016

    Newsletters

    • WooHoo! I Made a Calendar 10/24
    • All My Favorite People Are Poets 09/24
    • Songs of the Night Sky 09/24
    • Hello September 09/24 
    • Stealth Solar Storm 08/24
    • Star Party Edition 07/24
    • East Village Edition 06/24
    • Dancing Auroras Overhead 05/24
    • National Poetry Month Wrap Up 04/24
    • Surprise, I Have a New Book 03/24
    • Happy Ashentine's Day 02/24
    • The Gift of Poemographs 01/24
    • A Recipe for Winter Warmth 01/24
    • Gifts for the Coming Year 12/23
    • Giving Thanks 11/23
    • A Cottage for Women Creatives 11/23
    • Gathering Light 10/23
    • Home by Another Road 10/23
    • P is for Photos, Poems, and Prose 09/23
    • To Stardust We Shall Return 09/23
    • Books by Day & Stars by Night 07/23
    • It's My Party 07/23
    • May Mashup 05/23
    • Poetry on the Move 04/23
    • My New Book Is Born 04/23
    • Severe Solar Storm Edition 03/23
    • Are We There Yet? 03/23
    • Let Me Change Your Life 12/22
    • Astronomical Wonders 09/22 
    • Finding Sustenance in this Season 03/22
    • Happy Holidays 12/21
    • Treats Not Tricks 10/21
    • Here in the Ember Months 09/21
    • Sizzling Summer Sights & Sounds 07/21
    • Memorial Day Update 05/21
    • Holy Week 03/21
    • March Madness 03/21
    • Solstice Greetings 12/20
    • The Gratitude Issue 11/20
    • Autumn Is Upon Us 09/20
    • Summer Sightings 07/20
    • What to do with this pain 05/20
    • New Anthology 05/20
    • Easter Edition 04/20
    • Sequestered Sunday 03/20
    • Keep Calm & Cloister On 03/20
    • February Feasting 02/20
    • Cathy's Autumn Update 11/19
    • Settle in to September 09/19
    • Coming Up! 08/19
    • A New Memoir in the Family 07/19
    • California Here I Come 06/19
    • Sky's the Limit 04/19
    • Spring Update 03/19
    • New Book 02/19
    • Fabulous February Literary Update 02/19
    • New Year News Letter 01/19
    • Winter Writing Update 12/18 
  • Home
  • Books
  • Photos
  • About
  • Writing
  • Blog
  • Classes & Events