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Stay Salty Y'all

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  Sunday, September 29: Be Salty for Jesus! Reflection for church while my back heals.  Welcome everyone to another church on the beach. Fr. James is dealing with his back injury, and sent this reflection to read, so here it goes.  I spent Thursday morning planning for the next two weeks, anticipating that I might need a medical procedure. As I did so, I marveled at how many amazing leaders we have within our church. I was focusing on the worship service, and leading worship on Sundays is a only portion of what we do as a church community, but it is an important part of what we do. It is where we gather together to reorient to God, to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and to listen for inspiration from Jesus. How fitting that we gather on the beach today to hear Jesus remind us to be salty. Do we have it easier, here beside the sea? We can hardly help but be salty around here. I want to start with that, which is where Jesus lands his somewhat meandering message.  He tells
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The Problem and Blessing of Language

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In the Christian Bible, there are two prominent stories focused on language, although since the Bible we read is in English, translated from Greek and Hebrew all of which is seeking to articulate the ineffable, you could say the whole Bible is about language, but I digress.  The story of the Tower of Babel is a primeval history of why there are so many language groups in the world, and most importantly, it addresses that all-too common theme of hubris: that is when humans think too highly of themselves. There we were, building a tower up to heaven to be on the same level as God, then the confusion happened. All the people were given different languages so they couldn't continue to build up-up-up. We were humbled and scattered. Unless we read those stories regularly, we are likely to forget to be humble and hope on the hubris train again and again and again. The second story focused on language is that delightful story in the book of Acts, when instead of confusion, the gift of lang
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The Gift ofCommunity

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I'm looking forward to being part of a college student retreat out at Mustang Island Conference Center next month with students from around the state. It's somewhat nostalgic for me because I was active in our college campus ministry, called Canterbury, when I attended Southwest Texas in San Marcos (know today as Texas State.) I was recruited by the chaplain when I was carrying my guitar across campus, and their musician had just graduated.  I still keep up with a number of my Canterbury friends, even though we live across the state and country. In the last century, when I was in college, we would gather every week at St. Mark's, right on the edge of campus for a home cooked meal, worship, and conversation. Sometimes it was just a game night to let our brains rest during finals, sometimes it was learning about contemplative prayer, or having Eucharist with our visiting Bishop. I attended a few retreats with other Canterbury groups, and at one of those we heard from a speake
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Falling out of boats

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Reflection for Morning Prayer July 28, 2024 Trinity by the Sea Some of you may not remember the first time you stepped onto a boat, or more to the point, the first time you fell out of a boat. Most of my falling-out stories are from the San Marcos River misjudging an eddy around a bend, the bow pulled suddenly in the opposite direction from what I expected, then pushed sideways up against a submerged root that gives loft to the bow sending two paddlers into the drink. Fortunately, all of those occasions eventually ended with laughter. Then there are those moments of non-commitment, like standing one foot on a log that had fallen across the river, foot in the canoe, and quickly realizing the mistake. A similar thing can happen on the docks here, at least with smaller boats. Stepping into a boat takes commitment. One foot on land and one in the vessel is a short-lived exercise in balance and stretching beyond the ability of most yogis. Be on land or in the boat, not in both places at o
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Into the Gulf

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A friend was recently serving as chaplain at Mustang Island Conference Center and someone from his church asked to be baptized in the gulf while they were here. He called to ask for advice, and I talked about my experience with beach baptisms and gave a few pointers. It reminded me of when I first moved here and called Pastor William Campbell to ask him the same question before my first beach baptism. Now, I have lost count of how many beach baptisms we have celebrated now. Some still prefer to be sprinkled to being dunked (baptism literally means to be dunked), but either way, standing just off shore on the edge of the gulf which connects to the oceans is a profound place to be initiated into an intentional life in the Body of Christ.  There is an early church text simply called the Teaching , or in Greek, the Didache  which describes baptism in the first century church. The preference is for "living water" such as a stream or sea. If that is not available, it recommends col
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Pilgrimages Change Us

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 A refleciotn written for Trinity by the Sea while I was on pilgrimage to Navajoland, Dine Bikeyah,  July 7, 2024, we did not gather because there was a Hurricane making landfall that morning. We missed the worst of it. ( Proper 9, Year B )   One’s hometown is possibly the hardest place to change. I heard about one of our local graduates who recently attended orientation. His parents talked about all the new people he had met, and I immediately thought about the friends I made when my parents moved me to San Marcos for college. Stephen had a Beastie Boys patch on his backpack. Colby invited us to his dorm room for Sunday night feast: a potluck of pitiful presentation of the contents of our door room fridges. Justin, Jim, and Billy the trickster trio from Cypress Texas. I still keep in touch with all of them. They all moved from their hometowns, too, and we grew and learned together. The experience changed us all forever. Mike Tocci, Fr. Mike Sells, Sr. Warden Marietta, and Me practicin
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By What Authority?

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This is an election year, as well as an Olympic year. I'm glad we have the Olympics to draw our focus toward that amazing human achievement, as I don't feel as proud about the way campaigns leading up to elections take place. I would like to invite those of you who consider yourselves people of faith to be intentional about how much power and authority you give to the divisive national politics arena in your life. You get to elect to focus your attention on God and your spiritual life. What's better is you can cast that vote right now!  When Jesus is asked by Pontius Pilate by what authority he is acting, Jesus will not make a defense to the worldly authority. Instead he deflects and asks Pilate a question about John the Baptist that Pilate cannot answer. Jesus' focus is on the kingdom of God: that invisible kingdom bound by no geography, earthly government, nor term limit. God's kingdom is present whenever we give the authority of our lives to God, when we pray for
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