I did not have the opportunity to capture the usual interviews. My fault. Luckily Jennifer Tucker was extraordinary. She captured footage. I have to return to St. Peter's for the interviews.
Es un gran honor estar aquí con mis hermanas y hermanos. Mi sangre, mi fe, mi familia. This week, your work, your prayers, this community will change the church. You are co-creators and collaborators with Jesus. The Kingdom is at hand. One of my favorite authors is Alice Walker. One of her short stories is The Welcome Table. It tells of an elderly, nameless black woman, "the color of poor gray Georgian earth," worn down by old king cotton. Dressed in tattered rags, she makes her way one Sunday morning "down the road toward the big white church," as the story says. A church that is pale in many ways. When she walks in, the good church folks are shocked. The preacher reminds her pleasantly that this is not her church, "as if one could choose the wrong one." Maybe she is a bit confused and in the wrong place. She shakes her head and brushes past them all and finds a seat near the back. Inside it is very cold, colder than usual. The d...
I am catching up on two days. All have been packed with visits and events. Each day, we start before sunrise and conclude late into the evening. For me, this is not tiring but invigorating. Let’s start with the dedication of the Anglican Communion Forest in Central America located at El Maizal in El Salvador. It was a two-hour drive from San Salvador, and we were warned it would be warm (minor understatement). The drive was spectacular, and the people are beautiful. I feel so at home in Latin America. The faithful traveled from various parts of the diocese, and the service was an outdoor Eucharist filled with singing. The warning about the heat was an understatement. The humidity hovered around 88%, and well into the third hour, the “feels like” temperature read 106. We traveled another hour and had lunch on the Pacific Ocean at a restaurant that leases on property owned by the Diocese of El Salvador. The view and the food were spec...
It never fails to take my breath away. Whether sharing a meal with the Dine at Good Shepherd Mission, Ft. Defiance, Arizona, celebrating Eucharist along the El Paso/Juarez border, or sharing the peace with the faithful at St. Andrews in Ramallah, the Holy One left me speechless once again. We spent the majority of the day at Iglesia Santa Cruz in Balanyá. Our Mayan siblings have a deep and resolute faith despite the challenges of climate change, hard labor in the fields, and often being forgotten by others. The region around Balanyá is the most important agricultural area in Guatemala. The indigenous Mayan population largely work the fields. They are experiencing drought, and the crops desperately need rain. Climate change is affecting their rainy season, which was supposed to start in May, but they have not seen any rain. For years, this congregation had worshiped in a parishioner’s house or the rented rectory, and St. David’s Church in Radnor...