If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the value of one with five or six hyperlinks?
In my opinion, it’s pretty high.
I found a cool new tool to easily transform your photos into interactive, dynamic content for the web. I had tried this a few years ago when I was inspired by the interactive and sophisticated Advent calendar produced by the good folks of Trinity, Wall Street. I did find a program and created some content, but the software was hard to use, and my result, I fear, looked like an arts-and-crafts poser on a Fashion Week runway.
This new program removes the coding challenges and makes it easy to look like a cutting-edge, web-content provider. The program is ThingLink As with a lot of these types of programs, there’s a free version and a premium one. I think for most users, the free offering will be suitable.
After you’ve created an account, click on the create button. From there, you’ll find that it’s pretty intuitive to transform your image into an interactive, dynamic photo. This is what I mean:
http://www.thinglink.com/scene/378897600004227074#tlsite
Go ahead. Scroll over the photo and click on the different icons. They will take you to more information – about chef hats, a recipe for baklava, a link to my Facebook page, and a place to buy fillo dough.
What are you giving up for Easter? Or, are you taking on something new instead during Eastertide?
What? Hadn’t thought about that? No plans for keeping Easter? Join the club.
I grew up in a faith tradition that didn’t spend a lot of time on Lent as a time of penitence and preparation, so I’ve been learning about the Episcopal traditions of keeping Lent. But I wonder: with all that time and energy leading up to Easter, do we run out of steam when it comes to honoring the 50 days after the resurrection of our Lord?
I suspect our Easter-keeping fades faster than Easter lilies. We don our Easter Sunday best, bellow glorious strains of “He is Risen,” give an extra umph to our Alleluias, eat deviled eggs and chocolate bunnies, and then move on to the next holiday: baseball’s Opening Day.
I like Easter egg hunts and I play to win. Actually, I haven’t been allowed to participate in one for quite a number of years, which is clearly a form of age discrimination. Just imagine the number of plastic eggs I could amass competing against a bunch of four and five-year-olds. I would dominate like LeBron James playing hoops against the local High School Junior Varsity team.
Most kids can’t imagine Easter Day without an Easter egg hunt. I used to love the adrenaline-pumping thrill of the hunt — and that was just last year. Actually we do hold an annual Easter egg hunt at St. John’s following our 9:00 am Family Service on Easter Day. A few parents organize it with help from some eager teens – which means I occasionally stumble on unfound eggs in mid-August. There’s no better reminder of the resurrection than encountering a gooey four-month old melted mixture of chocolate bunny and purple jelly beans inside a plastic egg.
I know that in some religious circles Easter egg hunts are anathema – something about being pagan in origin. And, yes, the egg as a symbol of rebirth and new life pre-dates Christianity. But I like Easter egg hunts and not just because free jelly beans are the best kind. I love watching a young child’s face light up with the thrill of discovery. Nothing beats it.
John and I walked home after church this past Sunday. We were carrying palms, of course - a whole handful of them. Our church was very generous with the amount they handed out this year. The palms were long, slender, and bright green and we found that they attracted a lot of attention on the street. A few of the passersby seemed to remember, all of a sudden, that it was Palm Sunday.
When we got into our building and huddled into the elevator, we were greeted by one of our neighbors, a woman around our age that neither of us had ever spoken to before.
“Oh palms!” she said with a smile. “That must mean that next Sunday is Easter, my favorite day of the year.”
“Really?” I said. I have to admit that her comment took me by surprise. Until that moment I’d known her simply as the woman with the beautiful chocolate lab.
As we gather this evening to observe Maundy Thursday, many of us will be invited to participate in the ritual of foot-washing. For some, our feet will be washed by our parish priest. For others, we will engage in serving one another, having our feet washed by the person in front of us, and then in turn washing the feet of the person behind us.
For me, the latter practice is the more meaningful. It reinforces for me that in being sealed as Christ’s own, we are bound together in a web of mutual servanthood. I hold within the moment when I sat while a student who had suffered a sports injury laid aside his crutches, carefully knelt to support himself on his good knee while he lowered the more painful one, took my feet, and carefully washed them. His commitment was palpable; his determination to participate beyond his physical discomfort was a gift.
I’m the pastor of a medium-size congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, St. Dunstan’s Church. On Thursday evenings in Lent, we’ve been walking the Stations of the Cross at 6:00 pm, before our potluck supper and Lenten program. It's always a small group (our max has been 5, I think). Tonight it was just me, my son G (7-going-on-8), and a woman who is new to our community. We used the order of service from the Book of Occasional Services, and we walked around the full-length glass doors that form the outside walls of our church, where paper cutouts of the 14 stations are taped to the windows. The images are based on a set created by an artist who was one of the original members of the congregation back in the 1960s.
I had a little talk with G in the car about what the Stations are - kind of a story, kind of a church service - and I asked him to try to tune in and listen. I let him know he could read a station, if he wanted to; he said he didn't. He took his own Stations booklet, and grabbed a red marker. On the way into church he asked me, "Can I draw in this?" I hesitated a moment before saying, "Sure, go ahead."
What did G do, while we were going around and reading the Stations? He stood with us -sometimes relatively still, sometimes hopping from foot to foot. Sometimes reading along in his booklet, sometimes flopping his booklet back and forth, sometimes holding his booklet over his face with just his eyes peering over. He wandered off and sat down on a chair, a rocker, the floor. He drew a cross in red marker on one page of the booklet. He gazed at the art. He breathed on the glass of the windows and drew crosses in the water vapor with his finger. He fell over, once. He peered into the faces of the two adults in the room, to try to figure out what we were thinking and feeling. Sometimes he read the responses with us; sometimes he missed them.
In the middle of the science fair/book fair/fine arts fair, time to visit the school night, we ran into a couple from our church.
I was surprised. Their kids are grown and in master’s programs around the country. They don’t have grandkids or nieces and nephews. I wondered what brought them to the elementary school on a brisk but sunny Tuesday night.
Their answer was simple: they came to see our daughter’s science project. And the project by another fifth grader from our church. The robot from a first grader in the cherub choir and the Underground Railroad quilt square by our son and other second graders.
They came just to support the kids of the church.
Julie Andrews had it right.
In “The Sound of Music,” she begins to teach her young charges about notes and singing. When she realizes that they don’t even have a basic understanding, she backs up and encourages them.
“Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.”
There’s a common refrain across the country: We want more kids to be a part of the church.
But time and again, it seems, we make the mistake of starting in the wrong place.
Launching a senior high youth group for two faithful high school students probably won’t get much traction. It makes more sense to partner with a neighboring church so that the teens can be part of a community and build some comraderie with their peers. Starting a college ministry around one faithful freshman is likely an invitation for failure and frustration.
Look around and identify the energy – and the audience.
Somewhere in our move, I lost my wedding rings.
I keep hoping they will turn up, tucked in the bottom of jewelry bag or slipped behind a drawer. But it’s been three weeks and lots of emptying boxes and still no sign.
My thumb keeps finding the smooth band of my ring finger, where 15 years of wearing the rings created a near permanent indention.
I feel naked without them.
The rings – engagement and wedding – aren’t of significant monetary value. We were pretty poor at our engagement, and while it was a stretch for us, it’s not a diamond Harry Winston would hawk to celebrities. And the wedding band is gorgeous, in my opinion, but it won’t make a Times Square billboard for Valentine’s Day.
Growing up in a different denomination meant that my primary reference for Lent was something you might find in a belly button.
Easter was big. Christmas too, of course. But Lent and Advent weren’t players in that tradition’s lexicon.
Over the past decade as an Episcopalian, I have warmed to these seasons of preparation. I still might let an Alleluia slip, and my tree goes up the first week of December. But I also am trying to be deliberate about my spiritual practices so that I might ready my heart and steady my mind.
But I still have a long way to go.
Our children announced to us yesterday what they plan to give up during Lent. Our daughter, a connoisseur of fine steaks, is giving up red meat. And our son, with a serious sweet tooth, is forgoing candy.
My husband, who has long held to strict Lenten disciplines, nodded appreciatively. I was incredulous.
What will you do when we go out to eat, I asked my daughter, who never fails to find the most expensive flank on the menu. And what about the candy from your Valentine’s Day party at school?
God has been active in my life these last few days.
Perhaps it’s better to acknowledge that I’ve been more cognizant of God’s presence; I suspect God is always active, whether I’m paying attention or not.
I started last week in a new job as managing editor at Forward Movement. The organization publishes the popular daily devotional, Forward Day by Day, as well as produces content in many forms (electronic, apps, books, pamphlets, etc.), all to the end of strengthening discipleship and supporting evangelism. One of my duties is to seek out writers for our devotionals and for other projects.
As I skimmed through pitches from prospective writers and read a variety of blog posts, my mind kept coming back to two names. Neither has written for Forward Movement before but their names kept bobbing up.
I decided to listen and placed the calls.
What do you get when you combine a love of sports with a love of saints? Lent Madness, of course. A year after this unique online devotion went viral—with mentions in Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, and many other media outlets, Lent Madness is back.
Based loosely on the wildly popular NCAA basketball tournament, Lent Madness pits 32 saints against one another in public voting as they compete for the coveted Golden Halo. But it is more than that: Lent Madness is really an online devotional tool designed to help people learn about saints. The competition begins on Thursday, February 14 and takes place at www.lentmadness.org.
The creator of Lent Madness, the Rev. Tim Schenck, says “Lent Madness is about getting people to connect with and be inspired by some amazing people who have come before us in the faith. Some are already household names and others are virtually unknown, but we can all learn something from the unique ways they followed God. Plus, there’s no rule that says Lenten disciplines have to be dreary.”
I recently read this article by Steve Almond in the New York Times magazine. In it, Almond stressed the importance of narration and storytelling. “On a grand scale,” he writes, “we’ve traded perspective for immediacy, depth for speed, emotion for sensation, the panoramic vision of a narrator for a series of bright beckoning keyholes.”
In other words, we’re so bombarded with information and images and videos from the internet and television that we’ve lost the ability to tell a story. And stories are how we make sense of our lives.
The Bible is an important part of that story, but is itself a somewhat fragmented narrative. Of course, I believe that certain themes come through: forgiveness and love and hope and sin. Still, it’s not enough to simply offer people a Bible, a Book of Common Prayer, and access to the internet and hope they can figure it out. It is part of our job to show why we believe.
Of course, certain churches have a clear story they tell: you must believe in Jesus Christ in order to go to heaven. What is the story the Episcopal Church is telling, a church that is more diverse theologically and has a story that is more difficult to summarize in a sentence or two?
Growing up it appeared to be common knowledge that the 12 days of Christmas was the period from Christmas to Epiphany. In my suburban community, almost everyone was Christian and it seemed that all of the children – at least during their elementary school years – went to Sunday school.
In New England in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, Christianity shaped and provided a common narrative for our society.
This year evidence of a different understanding of the 12 days of Christmas seemed to be everywhere. From the comic strip “Mother Goose and Grimm,” to advertising campaigns, to a list serv post by a young diocesan employee sharing his surprise at learning the 12 days began on Christmas, many secular cultural references reinforced a countdown TO Christmas. Start shopping on Black Friday. Begin opening the doors on your Advent calendar December 1. Let’s count down the days until the BIG event starts on Christmas Eve.
From Luke’s Gospel:
Jesus came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 22:39-46 (NRSV) – December 17, 2012.)
We are all, every American, still reeling from and trying to comprehend a tragedy. Twenty First Grade children, most age 6, and six teachers and school administrators were gunned down at an elementary school in Connecticut on Friday. There is not a person in this country, probably not a person in the world, who has not uttered some variation on “Father, if you are willing remove this cup . . . .” in the past 72 hours.
We would give anything to have those lives returned to us. But the cup was not to be taken from Jesus and the loss of those innocent lives will not be miraculously restored; the cup will not be removed.
I love John the Baptist.
I love the way he gets right up in people’s faces.
I love the way he calls out the tax collectors and the soldiers who are abusing their power and extorting illegitimate gain.
I love the truth-telling of his Advent message: Jesus is coming. Get your act together.
This fall a present-day John the Baptist unexpectedly broke into my life. Driving to and from the hospital twice a day for two weeks, I got to know Augusta differently from the sporadic view I get when I only go a few places every once in a while, running errands or getting my hair cut. The everyday rhythm of being in the same areas around the same times awakened a sense of presence and made me pay attention.
I am grateful for that because, had I not been paying attention, I would never have noticed the older man who walks very purposefully along the main thoroughfare, always on the sidewalk and always facing traffic. As cars pass, instead of waving at them, he gives them the finger. It’s not just an absent-minded gesture as he walks along—it’s deliberate; there’s no doubt about which car has caught his attention in any given moment.
This picture shows the final product of my church’s autumn-long effort to create a glass mosaic representing our fall theme of Bountiful Abundance. Over 100 people laid tiles and we completed the piece in one long-day and a half-day follow up. Like our community-built Stained Glass Great Window (also pictured), the Bountiful Abundance Mosaic will be an important symbol of our community life.
The design resulted from drawings submitted by our church school children. Our artist-in-residence, Cheryl Smith, drew themes and images from the drawings to create a cartoon for the mural.
The central symbol is the Tree of Life. It is fed by the Living Waters on the right that interacting with the Sunburst behind the tree creates the Rainbow on the left that results in the bounty at the murals bottom left hand corner.
It’s Advent, the season of anticipation, preparation, and waiting. A time when Christians around the world get ready to welcome Jesus - as both the babe and the risen Christ - into not only our hearts but into our lives.
At ECF Vital Practices, our Advent gift to you is a collection of essays inviting you to delve deeper into our common Christian faith, including two reflections from “Stories of Transformation: Worship, Witness, and Work in the Black Community,” a new resource from the Episcopal Church’s Office of Black Ministries.
Our December content includes:
All around New York there are lights on the lampposts and covering the trunks of trees along Park Avenue. I know, many feel that it’s too early for Christmas decorations, but I love these lights. They serve almost like the Advent candles we light on Sunday mornings: a reminder every time I walk outside that Christmas is approaching.
For those of us who love Advent, and are more concerned with the meaning of the Christmas season than gifts and Christmas trees, it can be easy to feel frustrated, to become Advent police complaining about how early Christmas decorations are out this year and how they are out earlier and earlier every year.
Allison popped up in my newsfeed again.
Each time is a jolt, a reminder of an irregular mole that consumed a dynamic woman. Her death on Christmas Day left a young boy motherless and a husband bereft.
For a while, I struggled with how people lived on in the virtual space of Facebook despite their deaths in the real world. A reminder to say hi to Cliff or wish Mom Jill happy birthday delivered a gut punch. What kind of cruel joke was Facebook playing on its users?
Facebook eventually realized the problem and shared the company’s policy of memorializing profiles of users. This still allows people to write on the walls but takes them out of the public search.
But I’ve come to appreciate these unexpected reminders. I think about Allison, who I couldn’t dislike even though my high school crush asked her to the senior prom. She was kind and funny, astute and engaged, the kind of girl in high school that I would love to be friends with as an adult. Even though we hadn't talked in years, her death shook me. And I will always be in debt to her mother, an English teacher during my junior year, who wrote in the margins of a sample college essay that even if I lived into my then-plans to become a medical doctor, I must always make space for writing, for feeding my soul with words.
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