Martini Mass

New York City’s Church of the Ascension has a 6 PM Jazz Mass followed by a cocktail hour (and, yes, they serve Martinis). The combo has come to be known as the Martini Mass, and regularly draws more people than the parish center can hold. Linda was stunned to discover that Church of the Ascension […]

Precious Grace

We went to church early today (8:30), and then to a healing service conducted by our friend, the Rev. Frannie Hall-Kieschnick (who also preached today).
At the healing service, a man none of us knew said that his wife had just died, he was out of work and about to be evicted - his plight put […]

A green New Year, or else!

The Archbishop of Canterbury, theoretically my loftiest spiritual guide, has decreed that “God does not waste,” on YouTube, no less. Does St. Peter have to drag his recycling to the curb?

Time flies

At church this morning, many parishioners and their children took the opportunity to make Advent wreaths during a very nice brunch organized by Trinity’s foodies. As I looked on, it gave me pause to consider how fast time has flown this past year.
The most precise prognosis I’ve received (from UCSF physicians) gives me a 50% […]

Pope Innocent III action figure

Only a friend of David Perry would be unsurprised to receive a Pope Innocent III action figure in the mail. David and I frequently correspond on the subject of Pope Benedict XVI, and somehow David thought injecting Pope Innocent III into the conversation would be a good idea.
Innocent launched the 4th Crusade, and was responsible […]

The Evangelical Crackup

“The pendulum in the Christian world has swung back to the moderate point of view. The real battle now is among evangelicals.” NYT story points out that evangelical congregations are tiring of politically-oriented pastors who preach right-wing Republican politics along with religion. There have been real-deal evangelical congregations all along who would not allow politics […]

News from Africa

The Most Rev. Njongonkula Ndungane, the Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of Southern Africa was the featured speaker at a Town Hall meeting at Trinity Episcopal Church (our parish) last night. We felt honored that we were one of four Bay Area parishes that Bishop Ndungane chose to visit.
Archbishop Ndungane is most disinterested in […]

Painting ourselves into the ‘God corner’

In church today, I was listening to the sermon, offered by Father Fred Heard, who was preaching about faith, as presented in today’s Gospel of the mustard seed. As usual, I was viewing this through my weird faith/science duality (and here): I love faith communities, but don’t believe in a human-like God who […]

After 13 years, church in the morning….

So, for the last 4 years, we’ve been going to a 5 PM service at Trinity Episcopal Church. Three weeks ago our new Rector, Mike Spillane introduced a new schedule with 8:30 and 10:30 services linked by a forum on faith issues. It makes a lot of sense, and everyone has worked hard to […]

More tripod work…

New Rector Father Mike Spillane is greeted by Bishop Marc Andrus at Mike’s installation service yesterday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Menlo Park. The Lumix, sitting on a tripod and setting appropriately slow shutter speeds, brought out the colors in Trinity’s not-overbright Nave. I’m getting used to working on the tripod… it’s a bit tricky… […]

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