Category: Theological reflection
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Even the Dogs Get Crumbs
The Gospel lection for this Sunday (September 8, 2024, in the Episcopal edition of the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Proper 18) is Mark 7:24-27. It includes two pericopes, including one of the Gospel accounts of the story of a Gentile woman whose child is ill: Jesus set out and…
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In the Beginning Was the Word
And God said, “Letthere be light!”And there was light, or would have been, had God been crafting a cosmos intelligible to the Bronze Age mind, or mine. Scientists—specifically, astrophysicists—tell us that we can detect light from the Big Bang, the background microwave radiation all around us. We can see into…
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First Sunday in Lent
I am not a fan of Lent. There is altogether too much breast-beating for my taste. Or, rather, for my mental and spiritual health. I’m trying to recast it in my own mind, because I know it means so much more. As one of the Proper Prefaces for Lent says,…
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Trying so hard to be ordinary
It’s a weird calendar this year for us church folk. Christmas Eve was on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and Ash Wednesday will be on Valentine’s Day again. This past Saturday, January 6, was the Feast of the Epiphany—a feast you would think would be transferred to the nearest Sunday,…
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Among Women, Blessed
The following poem, for a long time while I kept revising it, bore the working title, “Closing in on Christmas.” I’m glad my poetry group agreed I should change the title once it found its final form. And now that we’re deep into Christmas, why don’t I share my Advent…
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“And the Word Became Flesh”
Back to poems! And stay tuned for a special announcement at the end of this post. This poem was published August 25, 2022 in Earth & Altar Magazine. Elaine Elizabeth BelzAND THE WORD BECAME FLESH O, Bread my tonguehas taken and my teethhave crushed: leave your imprintdeep in my molars,…
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Aesthetics, the Church, and the “Spirit of the Age”
I interrupt this poetry series to bring you some thoughts sparked by arguments on Twitter. (Clearly I know how to engage readers…) I say “arguments” because attempts at discussion or conversation on that platform invariably lead to arguments—not necessarily because people are terrible, but more, I think, because the limited…
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Habitus
Read it here on Earth & Altar‘s website Elaine Elizabeth Belz HABITUS Crossing this threshold, I dip my hand in water,re-inscribe my birth. Stolid airushers me in, thick with dustand smoke and resin and with voices, shuffling feet,creaking floorboard and pew—all musicto uncloak my solitude.A votive wick receives my longing,…
The Sound 