Seeking Authentic Voice

Although I am preaching without a manuscript here is the gist of what I intended to say for Easter 2B, commenting on the readings appointed for the day. What I actually said was more, and included comments from the members of the congregation.  Here are portions of the readings I was commenting on:  1 John 1:1-2:2 "that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all"  and from the Gospel - John 20:19-31"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."  I woke up last Sunday, Easter, to find a story a friend of mine posted on his Facebook page.  Following the Great Vigil he came outside of his church last Saturday night and was awestruck by the full moon. He knelt to take a photo of it with his cell phone and while kneeling a car drove up to him. Two police officers got out of that car an

One year my family and I moved into a new house. The backyard was large with lots of trees and grass. There was one oddity to the yard, a 3 by 5 foot section that was weed-filled. We figured it must have been an herb garden at one time, but now it was nothing but entangled weeds, the result of years of neglect. Not long after we moved in my husband, Dan, and I, decided to dig up the weedy section and let it return to grass. So we took shovels and went outside and tried to dig. We tried and tried, but to no avail. The weeds were too thick and the ground was too impacted by weeds, completely root bound. We called a landscaper to come help, and a few days later a couple of guys showed up with shovels. I started to laugh and thought to myself, "This I have to see." The guys made a valiant effort to dig here, then there. But after several vain attempts they gave up and left. A few hours later they returned with a tractor and dug up that root bound piece of earth. Afterward we fill