“Room in the Inn: Closets”

Some of you know, I was in Israel for 10 days in October. I traveled with 17 other folks from the Lexington, Massachusetts and the surrounding area. We who traveled together were all clergy and professional religious workers. We were Jews, Catholics, Unitarians, and Protestants. Four of us were UCC.

“Oikonomics”

Rev. Abby Phinney Baskette and Rev. Abigail A. Henrich

“Ordinary Mysticism”

I grew up in a Christian household, my father is a minister, now retired. My mom is a missionary kid. I’m telling you, we had a praying household. Not every night, but very often, we had family bible study and prayers before bed. Before every meal we prayed. We preacher’s kids, my sisters and I knew formulas for praying very, very early on. There was pressure on us, man, in the family, in Sunday School, to know how to perform, prayer wise. I could say the words, and perform the concern that a prayer should probably evoke in the pray-er, but most often in my case, it did not. That way of praying didn’t feel very authentic to me, and I didn’t know there was another way to pray. For a long time, I didn’t pray because I didn’t know how.