About Emily

midwestern belle, Episcopal priest.

Prayer as Second-Nature

Posted on 10 October, 2014 by Emily

Was thinking about this post yesterday when conversing about prayer, familiarity, change, and growth…

Back in June, when I made my first voyage back to my hometown* (Durham), about ten minutes out from my best friend’s home, I realized that we NEEDED cheese for our Sunday night repast. Flipping my brain quickly into cheese-emergency mode, I thought, “Must get to Whole Foods (only cheesey place open on Sunday nights). Where am I now? How to get there fast?” And my brain then did a very funny thing. It shut off. I exited the interstate, and my arms felt like they were moving themselves, turning the wheel; my foot had a mind of its own, pressing the brake and the gas. And then, I turned up in the Whole Foods parking lot–presto! What a strange thing to happen, I thought, that my brain wouldn’t do the think-through-the-map-you-keep-stashed-in-your-mind, calculating distances and times and the length of stoplights…

It dawned on me: my brain had done that…

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No Résumé Required

Posted on 6 October, 2014 by Emily

That Blessed Dependancy

A Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 5, 2014

Preached by the Rev’d Canon Dane E. Boston, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Columbia, South Carolina

Texts: Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

May I speak in the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

When was the last time you worked on your resume? That may seem a strange and irrelevant question to those of you not actively seeking employment. That may seem a perfectly ridiculous question to those of you who are retired.

But I’d like you to think for a moment of what working on a resume means. Think of that process of distilling the important stuff of your life down to one or two measly pages. Think of the struggle to give a sense for your passion and purpose through a dull litany of old jobs. Think of that effort to prove…

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home improvement – reblog

Posted on 6 October, 2014 by Emily

a bi-fold closet door/screen idea I’m inspired by this morning. S25

(from Little Green Notebook)

“Homesick at Home”

Posted on 4 October, 2014 by Emily

I’ve been thinking, recently, about the Episcopal Church. There’s a lot that makes me cry and makes me want a glass of wine, but it’s the only place where evangelical zeal, mystical drama, and universal, historical order meet–as my friend Andrew Petiprin says here.

reblogged from the Covenant Blog.

brave people make intimidating congregations

Posted on 2 October, 2014 by Emily

Over coffee this morning, shop-talking with my colleague, Dane, I thought of this ole post. May the 26 y.o. Emily speak to you as she’s spoken to me–demanding courage to speak the truth at all times and in all places.

hope of things not seen

Often, while sermon-writing, words come slowly, and when they come, they seem like little clods of dirt that break apart into dust the moment you try to grasp them. This exercise sends me running through my cycle of google reader-facebook-twitter. Having just completed the circuit a few minutes before, there was nothing new on my reader, but when i typed in “fac” in my browser bar (the fewest letters necessary to bring up my worn “facebook.com” link) and arrived at the top of my newsfeed, a new photo had been posted by my sister:

She wore a white sundress, her blonde hair was down, and the big white posterboard she held up read, “Shh… just go back to sleep.” It was a photo taken for Project Unbreakable, a website dedicated to survivors of sexual assault. I’d known about the event she referred to for a few months, but seeing…

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