Archive for January 2012
Day Five: Questions and Sources
Posted by: revjmk on: January 31, 2012
- In: Sabbatical
- 1 Comment
Today has left me feeling overwhelmed—not just with the Spirit, which has been spilling over in me every day, but with new information and insights about this place and its people, both ancient and modern. In the spirit of this blog as my place for pondering rather than reporting, I will not try to recount [...]
Day Four: Exploration and Adventure
Posted by: revjmk on: January 30, 2012
- In: Sabbatical
- 2 Comments
Today’s excursions had a spirit of exploration and adventure. We first visited the archeological site at Bethsaida, followed by a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and visit to a museum housing a first-century boat. Bethsaida sits atop an ancient tell (human-made mound), and was a fortified city back to the time of the [...]
Book Review: Sacred Travels
Posted by: revjmk on: January 30, 2012
Sacred Travels: Recovering the Ancient Practices of Pilgrimage by Christian George, IVP Books, 2006, 179 pp. What a disappointment this book turned out to be! I ordered two books about pilgrimage to take with me on this journey, in hopes that they would center me in the tradition of sacred journey during my time in [...]
Day Three: Mountaintops and Valleys
Posted by: revjmk on: January 29, 2012
Today was just as filled with God as yesterday was, but God treated me a little more gently, and with humor. Our first stop this morning was at the Mount of Beatitudes, which is the semi-traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount. I say, “semi-traditional,” because the tradition does not go back even to [...]
Day Two: Primacy of Peter and Capernaum
Posted by: revjmk on: January 28, 2012
- In: Sabbatical
- 1 Comment
From Tabgha, we walked a short way down the road to the chapel of the Primacy of Peter. The small church is set atop a giant rock at the very edge of the Sea of Galilee, which is supposedly connected to the story told in John 21. After the resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples [...]
Day Two: Tabgha
Posted by: revjmk on: January 28, 2012
- In: Sabbatical
- 1 Comment
Today we began the pattern that will shape the remaining days of our journey: awake, morning prayer, breakfast, excursion to holy sites, lunch, afternoon of quiet time, evening reflection, evening prayer, dinner, and more quiet time in the evening. As we gathered for morning prayer this first day, still bleary-eyed from our long journey, I [...]
Pilgrimage: Day One
Posted by: revjmk on: January 27, 2012
We have arrived! We travelled from Louisville to Newark, then from Newark to Tel Aviv. At the airport in Tel Aviv, our tour bus picked us up for a two-hour bus ride to the Sea of Galilee. From home to hotel, my travel time was exactly 25 hours, and we crossed seven time zones. We [...]
Anticipating Holy Encounters
Posted by: revjmk on: January 26, 2012
- In: Sabbatical
- 2 Comments
Tomorrow is the big day—I am leaving for two weeks (16 days, counting travel days) on a Macedonian Ministries Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The preparations for this day have been going on for months. I applied to the program last spring, and planned this sabbatical around it last June. Our group (all mid-career pastors) [...]
Book Review: Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Posted by: revjmk on: January 24, 2012
Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World, by James Carroll, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 418 pp. James Carroll’s book is like the inverse of Karen Armstrong’s book. Armstrong carefully catalogs the facts of history, and lightly draws inferences of some overarching themes in Jerusalem’s history and lore. Carroll sees mythic stories at [...]
Book Review: Mudhouse Sabbath
Posted by: revjmk on: January 24, 2012
Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline by Lauren F. Winner, Paraclete Press, 2003, 161 pp. Last week, a high school friend who I had not seen in nearly 20 years contacted me on Facebook to let me know he was passing through my town, and invited me out for coffee. It [...]
About Me
I am a full-time pastor in the United Church of Christ, mother of a preschooler (B.), married to an aspiring academic and curmudgeon (J.). I live by faith, intuition and intellect. I follow politics, football and the Boston Red Sox. I like to talk about progressive issues, theological concerns, church life, the impact of technology and media, pop culture and books.
- Aleada SIragusa: I am a member of United Church of Christ also. One of our pastors, Rev Victoria Long is also a woman. I am on the net searching for photographs I may
- Samantha R.: Hello, I work with a publication called The Traveler's Friend. We are a coupon book for hotels. I was wondering if I could get your permission to use
- Marilyn Holt: Thank you for your inspiring comments on the disaster in your neighborhood and the uplifting section from your sermon. This entry in your blog is maki
