by the Ven. Mimsy Jones
As another school year gets underway, I am remembering teachers who formed as well as informed me, beginning with my eleventh grade English teacher whose name was Miss McGing but was known to us students as the Holy Terror.
Short and stocky, with the zeal of a prize-fighter, Miss McGing taught English with a fiery passion.
Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the events now forever known simply as 9/11. Anyone, who is at least thirty years old, remembers where he/she was that day. Living in San Francisco and an inveterate early riser even then, I was just waking as a friend called to say, “Have you turned on the television?”
Here’s the way it happened. True story. We were carrying 2x4s and buckets of nails and scraps of tin down a zig-zagging path into a ravine in Pokot country far out in the Kenyan bush. The plan was to extend a dam to capture more rainwater, which would help both people and livestock
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
“The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Near the house where I stay in Maine, there is a tree-lined dirt road that winds up, down, and around the bay below. The road is barely wide enough for two oncoming cars to scoot past each
Had you been walking down West Third Street in Dayton, Ohio in the late 1800s, the shouts and curses spilling from the upper floor of a bicycle shop may have stopped you in your tracks. Two brothers worked in the space, and, as you may know, there are siblings who have learned to
In the movie Chariots of Fire, British athlete Eric Liddell was torn between his dream of participating in the 1924 Olympic Games and his religious convictions when he learned that his first heat of the 100-meter dash was scheduled on a Sunday. He met with the Prince of Wales and the committee to share his
I am back on the coast of Maine after a year off last year because of the pandemic. Although there are a few rather dreadful changes (construction of a tall, view-blocking hotel in the heart of Rockport village), the natural beauty of sea, sky, lush green lawns, and wildflowers remains untouched.
Communion means the world to me. Getting to be a part of it as presider, assistant, or person in the pew is a practice, the absence of which would break my heart and erode my soul. That is true despite the fact that neither my devotion to it nor my deep need of it makes
This week my brother flies in to help our dad move to Silver Spring, Maryland. And among the things we’ll need to attend to is his beloved 1953 Pontiac. The car is the same model as the one Dad was driving when he met our mother in Dallas. He was in seminary, and
My mother told me about the greatest compliment she ever received. A music director once said to her,
‘Marilyn, you are the best accompanist I have ever heard. You know, the tendency of most concert-quality pianists and organists like yourself is to outshine and often overpower singers and other musicians. You don’t do that. You know