Soundings

By Father David Fisher

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Want to learn more from different perspectives about our lessons? Soundings is a an opportunity for our Clergy to provide different insights into our readings and scripture. You may not always agree with the Clergy's interpretations. But that is why Soundings was created. To invite thoughtful discussion. You are welcome to email the author of each article to provide your comments. Welcome to Soundings!


Morning Meditation

By Father David Fisher

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Have patience with everything / unresolved in your heart, / and try to love the questions / themselves / as if they were locked rooms / or books written in a very foreign language.

Do not search for the answers, which / could not be given to you now, / because you would not be able to live / them. / And the point is to live everything. / Live the questions now. / Perhaps then, someday far in the / future, / you will gradually, / without even noticing it, live your way / into the answer.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Fifth Sunday of Easter - May 10, 2020

By Father David Fisher

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Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 The Greek word "hodos" means any number of things. For example, it could be translated as a "way," a "road," a "journey," or "traveling" or "custom."

John Dominic Crossan writes: To media or audience questions insisting, "Yes, yes, but was he really divine," I answer again and again that, for the first as for the twenty-first century, Jesus was and is divine for those who experience in him the manifestation of God.

Focus, for a moment, on that italicized word the. To be human is to be absolutely particular, that is, absolutely relative or relatively absolute. In anything that is of supreme importance to us, be it spouse or family, hobby or passion, job or profession, language or country, there is an inevitable slippage from a to the. A beloved spouse is the most beautiful person in the world and it is considered most imprudent to wake up next to that person and note, however correctly, that, "if I had not met you, I probably would have met somebody else."

Read more: Fifth Sunday of Easter - May 10, 2020

Waiting With Herod - December 1, 2019

By Father David Fisher

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Herod as portrayed by both Matthew and the Jewish historian Josephus was anxious, and cru-el. He probably suffered from proditomania - the feeling or belief that everyone is out to get you! Four incidents are recorded in which he executed large groups of suspected conspirators. The fact that three of these incidents, as well as the execution of all three sons, occurred with-in the last four years of Herod's reign indicate that Herod felt increasingly threatened in the period of Jesus' birth and was prepared to take ruthless measures against any potential usurp-er. Herod was clearly not one to regret eliminating a handful of children to dispose of a threat to his dynasty.

By contrast, Herod - as imagined by WH Auden in his 1942 “For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio” is not the raging tyrant that the poet might have drawn from medieval models, or the example of Hitler. Instead he is depicted as a dutiful public manager, a skeptical apostle of rationality and progress who believes that he must act to preserve civilization.

Read more: Waiting With Herod - December 1, 2019