by Janice MacLean | Feb 22, 2017 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
Ash Wednesday brings us back to Earth. What are these ashes? Perhaps they are last Easter’s palm hosanna’s waved in joy, now presented to the fire. Once full of life, now grey-shadowed dust transformed, and lying in a waiting bowl. Ash Wednesday brings us back to...
by Janice MacLean | Jan 26, 2017 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
When you wake on February 2, you are 40 days from Christmas. You might think it is Groundhog Day, but alongside this celebration of forecasting hope or gloom, it is also Candlemas. Candlemas is very old tradition rooted in the visit of Mary and Joseph to the Temple...
by Janice MacLean | Dec 24, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
She holds him in the cradle of her arm, a soft, swaddled weight that fits just right. She intones the story. On the night that you were born the sky was a lovely dark and the stars shone brighter than any night I ever saw. On the hill behind the shed we heard the...
by Janice MacLean | Oct 21, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
Hannah was mother of no-child for years and years. This was pain; pain etched deep. In her culture, infertility was a woman’s fault a sign of God’s disfavour, a source of shame a slow internal dying of an envisioned future, a well of grief and tears. And every year...
by Janice MacLean | Jun 16, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“And lo, God passed by. There was a great and mighty wind; splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake fire; but...
by Janice MacLean | May 12, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
The images of fire-filled Fort McMurray remain close to us as we near Pentecost. With pastoral sensitivity, and out of kindness, some have suggested setting aside fire imagery and holding up other Pentecost images. I tried to. I sat with the Pentecost-as-Breath story...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 22, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“What now?” Into the disorder of the week he pours water in a basin and wraps a towel around. I like to imagine he got the idea from Mary Magdalene. It was her gift to anoint his feet, her tears pouring love, her hair a towel of tender care. Great love....
by Janice MacLean | Mar 19, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“Two stones cannot occupy the same place, but two fragrances can.” – Sufi saying Two fragrances. [Open bracket Mary Magdalene breaks open the costly perfume and anoints the feet of Jesus wiping his feet with her hair. And the whole house was filled with the...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 18, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
It happened in the Temple the part that was more like a marketplace than a church, a widow, poor and of any imaginable age pays her temple tax with two small coins, a mite, but all she had. And Jesus says something like: “The truth is, this woman has put in more...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 15, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
As the week unfolds there is conflict, urgency, and loss. I imagine Jesus reaching for these words in the prayerbook of his soul. “Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within...
