Seeking Authentic Voice

A reflection on Lent 4B  -  Numbers 21:4-9;  John 3:14-21. When I was a little girl I used to visit my great-grandmother who lived outside Pocatello, Idaho, in a big yellow house on a family farm. My great-grandfather, and his parents before him, farmed the land. The front of the house was on a dirt road with a deep ditch that ran between the house and the road. I remember playing in the front yard of this house where my brothers and I would find frogs and garter snakes near the ditch. I had no fear of snakes and would readily pick up a  baby garter snake like I’d pick up a kitten.  Years later, as a college student, I lived near several beautiful national parks in southern Illinois. These parks were prime hiking areas through rugged terrain, the remnants of glaciers which left huge rocky bluffs, dark forests, and deep freezing cold lakes. This was a natural habitat for venomous snakes; rattlers and black water moccasins, among others. The distinctive n...

A reflection on the readings for propers for Season of Creation Sunday 2A: Genesis 3:1-13; and Romans 5:12-21 My sophomore year in college I lived in a house with three of my girlfriends. On hot summer days we’d load up in the car and make a drive out into the country for a swim in our favorite small lake. A remnant from ancient glaciers, this lake was tucked into a crevice bounded on all sides by rock cliffs and hills. Given the terrain we had to park the car some distance away and hike back through a patch of woods, a meadow, another stretch of woods, and down a hill to the lake. Along the way we would occasionally encounter a rattle snake sunning itself on a rock. The tell-tale rattle would give it away as it announced its presence long before we saw it. Always cautious, the humans and snakes would keep a healthy and suspicious distance from one another. The snakes preferred to slither away under a rock rather than attack or be aggressive – although no doubt they could be if we c...