As you have all heard me announcing endlessly (and are still hearing, in reading this!), Bishop Dietsche will be with us this Sunday to preach, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and confirm two of our congregants. I have wanted to publicize the Bishop’s time at Holy Apostles, of course. And I have been repeating this announcement more than is usual because—just for one Sunday—we are changing the time of our worship to 4:00 pm. There will be no morning services on September 25, as we are hoping that everyone who feels comfortable worshipping in person will gather in community to greet Bishop Dietsche later in the afternoon….

Our Adult Forum conversations during Lent focused on poetry as a way into seasonal themes. The conversations shared over five Sundays were insightful and generous, and although we will be moving on to a series exploring Stewardship this Sunday, I offer one more poem to contemplate during Eastertide: Miracles by the 19th century poet Walt Whitman…

  A “threshold” is commonly understood as a strip at the bottom of a door, over which one must cross in order to enter a different space. We cross a threshold from room to room, or from indoors to out. But there is a secondary definition to this word: a magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result or condition to occur or be manifested.

           We are at the threshold of Holy Week. We are about to relive the events that steer the momentum of this story toward Jesus’ death. The liturgies of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday pull us into God’s time and space. Our worship this week is structured differently. It has a unique rhythm. It highlights a unique reality…..

Of all the events contributing to the powerful and many-faceted legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the speech he gave at the March on Washington in 1963 is probably the most famous. The dream he articulated to and for our nation has echoed among us ever since he described it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The challenges posed by the truths he shared that day remain with us, and many acknowledge it as one of the most influential orations of the 20th century….