The Clochán

  The Episcopal Church is dying. This is a common opening sentence in many, if not most, articles about The Episcopal Church (TEC). The sad fact of the matter is that this sentence is not an exaggeration. It is the cold hard reality. However, while this sentence represents the reality of TEC - a reality that is as concrete as it is dire - it seems, at least from my limited point of view, that few folks in church leadership seem to care. As a matter of fact, it seems that willful ignorance is the attitude held regarding this reality. This reality - the reality that TEC will cease to exist as a viable denomination by 2050 (some estimates now post-COVID put that year at 2040) - is not even a point of discussion at diocesan or national church levels; if it is, it is done on the sly, silent whispers in back rooms as if this topic is a lurid secret that needs to remain hidden. There is no sense of urgency or even acknowledgement that our church is no longer the body it once was, but an ...

Last week was a week of pain and suffering – another unspeakable horror that we are forced to talk about. The intentional murder of the most innocent of God’s people – children. On Tuesday, May 24, an 18-year-old gunman shot his grandmother in the face and then, allegedly in a Facebook chat, said he was going to target an elementary school. He then made his way to Robb Elementary School where he seemingly entered the school with little to no resistance and then entered a classroom where he executed 19 elementary school children and the 2 teachers who were trying to protect them. Eventually he was killed by police. In the wake of this tragedy, a tragedy that is, unfortunately, all too familiar in our country, folks immediately went to their corners and began the condemnation, denial, deflection, indignation, and self-aggrandizing game that we have perfected in the United States. It is a game of perpetual stalemate where nobody gains or loses ground as they hatefully stare at each ...

When I was a teenager my friends and I were avid Role Playing Gamers. One of the Role Playing Games (RPG) we played was called Cyberpunk . It took place in a future that was littered with technology - technology that was not just used but also worn and implanted. These technologies helped characters in both solid reality and virtual reality. Night vision implants; nanobots; wire jacks into the brain; microchip brain implants to increase cognitive functions, the list went on and on. The possibilities were limitless. BUT, with these upgrades and bio-mods came "humanity costs."  The more metal and plastic upgrades you add to your character's body the more they begin to lose connection to being human. The Cyberpunk Player's Guide says: In the 2000s, we call this cyberpsychosis; a mental disease in which the addition of cosmetics causes an already unstable personality to fragment. At first, the victim begins to relate more to machines than to humans. Soon he starts to ign...

I wondered where I was going to begin this blog. I wanted the first post to be a springboard for other posts. Mainly because I think I would like this space to be a place where we tackle a narrative of ideas rather than random reflections. So, I think the best place to begin, the most fertile soil we can start with, is the idea of humanity being made in the Image of God. This is a complicated topic because what do we mean by "being made in the image of God?" Well, this idea is mentioned multiple times in the book of Genesis. The first time we encounter this idea is when God says to the heavenly hosts, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness..." (Gen. 1.26). When God makes Adam ( אָדָם - literally man, mankind, or humanity), scripture says, "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God" (Gen. 5.1).  In a rather challenging passage, after the flood, God says to Noah, "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood sha...

Welcome to my space! Before we get to the meat of this blog, it is probably good to know why I picked the title I picked. A clochan is a small beehive-looking hut used by Celtic monastics in both Ireland and Scotland. They are places of prayer, meditation, contemplation, and study. They are places where we consider the transcendent and move beyond our every-day thinking. They are places where we invite God into our lives by opening our hearts, minds, and spirits to the infinity of God and the limitless possibilities inherent in the creator, redeemer, and sanctifier of all reality.  I'm hoping that this space will be an online clochan where we can come together to reflect, discuss, pray, and nurture our spiritual lives - a place where we can interact with one another and examine how we can best cultivate our spiritual lives so that they can be carried into the world. And while we will consider spirituality from a diversity of sources, the primary focus of this blog will be spiritual...