by Mark Beckwith | Jan 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
Last week I sat for two hours in a periodontist’s office while receiving a dental implant. My mouth was adequately and expertly numbed, and the only discomfort I felt was the anxiety I experienced when the periodontist began to drill into my jawbone. There was not...
by Mark Beckwith | Jan 24, 2024 | Uncategorized
Some fifty years ago, The Episcopal Church, along with many other Christian denominations, went through a liturgical upgrade. The Nicene Creed, which was first written in 325 during the Council of Nicea (and from which its name is derived), and which is said at most...
by Mark Beckwith | Jan 17, 2024 | Uncategorized
It was someone else’s story, but over the years I have retold it as if it has become my own. It was Gardner Taylor’s story, which he told at the end of a sermon during my first year of divinity school, nearly fifty years ago. Dr. Taylor was then the pastor of...
by Mark Beckwith | Jan 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
Several years ago, while still an active bishop, I facilitated a meeting that I suspected would not go well. It didn’t. People, including me, came in angry or scared – or both. Half the group resisted the agenda, and the other half resented the resisters. Nearly...
by Mark Beckwith | Jan 3, 2024 | Uncategorized
The challenge, Henri Nouwen said in a class I took with him nearly fifty years ago, is not to see how we are different, but how we are the same. Yes, there are differences, he acknowledged – gender, age, culture, race, religion, life experience; but at root we all...
by Mark Beckwith | Dec 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
“Glory to God in the highest”, the angels reportedly sang, “and peace to all people of goodwill.” The particulars of the Christmas story have been debated for centuries: was Mary really a virgin? Was there a cohort of angels flying around in the night sky? Did a...
