Long Journey Home
Perspective on spirituality
Recent Posts by Sarah Reynolds
Living into the call
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 29One of the notable features of many of the “call” stories in the Bible — Abraham, Moses, Jonah, David, Paul — is that the one who is called is ...
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Christmas memories
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 15I was delighted to receive a Christmas memory in response to the request in my last column. It's a lovely story from Liz Hunt of Rockland: “The ...
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Transition, a gift of Advent
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 01As the close of another year approaches, it seems a good time to reflect on transitions, those passages where much that seemed settled in our ...
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Missing the mark, again
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Nov 17I am embarrassed when I find myself behaving in conflict with my professed beliefs. I am even more embarrassed when my falling short is borne in ...
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Stories of my grandfather
By Sarah Reynolds - Nov 03My grandfather Sydney ― my mother's dad ― was about as irreligious as they come. Not only was he personally agnostic, he was generally skeptical ...
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The ones who wrestle with God
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Oct 20In the thirty-second chapter of Genesis (Gen 32:22-31), Jacob wrestles all night with what many Bible translations call “a man.” Some refer to “an ...
The body, too, can be a door to the spirit
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Oct 06Why do we seek to connect with spirit, both inside ourselves and outside? I think it is because we sense something in ourselves that instinctively ...
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The faith that transforms our lives
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Sep 22If the life of the spirit is a "long journey home," faith is food for the journey. It is what sustains us and enables us to keep moving forward. ...
Song of the soul
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Sep 08"The voice is the sound of the soul," said Mimi Bornstein of Camden. She should know: she has two decades of professional experience directing ...
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Meetings with the divine
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Aug 25What is a "religious experience"? The phrase is sometimes used humorously to describe any intense, or intensely pleasurable, experience, as in ...
'Simplify, simplify'
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Aug 11After six years at the First Baptist Church of Belfast, the Rev. Ken Parker is losing his marbles — literally. He has a jar of the colorful glass ...
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Meddling with the Lord's Prayer
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jul 28A friend recently said her husband did not like the idea of changing the words of the Lord's Prayer. "The Lord's Prayer is the Lord's Prayer," he ...
A long way from Blowing Rock
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jul 14In the last two or three years, Chris McLarty has written hundreds upon hundreds of haiku. She started using the three-line, 17-syllable poetic ...
We follow the sun
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jun 30It has been difficult and painful to watch my parents diminish, to see them unable to do and enjoy the things they have always done, even those ...
Wandering to the right place
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jun 16Some people know their niche in life almost from the beginning. Most of us have to do at least a little wandering around before we hit on what ...
A nature-inspired prayer of the senses
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jun 02A few weeks ago, I went on a weekend retreat at Living Water Spiritual Center in Winslow. The center is run by the Sisters of St. Joseph and hosts ...
Mystery, medicine and grace
By Sarah E. Reynolds - May 19"Grace," according to Dr. Paul Mazur, "is the ability to tolerate ambiguity." When Mazur's wife, Juliet Baker, retired in 2007, the two moved ...
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The good Samaritan and the rich young man
By Sarah E. Reynolds - May 05Recently I talked to the director of a Christian camp, who said something that has stuck in my head: "Christianity is relational, not religious." ...
A pastor who mingles Orthodox influences with 'sloppy Agape'
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Apr 21The Rev. Matt McDonald seems excited, almost bubbly, as he shows a visitor around the converted poultry warehouse on Patterson Hill in Belfast ...
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'Doubting Thomas,' or 'Trusting Thomas'?
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Apr 07This coming Sunday, April 11, is the first Sunday after Easter, sometimes known as "Thomas Sunday," because, at least in churches that use the ...
A reminder of life's fragile beauty
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Mar 25For Bonny Versboncoeur, her work as chaplain of Waldo County Home Health & Hospice is "a very rich reminder for me that each moment is precious." ...
Original sin: Better than perfection?
By Sarah E.Reynolds - Mar 10I came across a quotation from the 20th-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr recently that caught my attention: "Original sin is that ...
Working with wardens a lesson in 'practical compassion'
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Feb 24When she was growing up, the Rev. Kate Braestrup lived all over the world because her father was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. ...
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A Valentine's Day memory
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Feb 10Last year around this time, my mother died. On Valentine's Day, actually. She had been in the hospital and then a nursing and rehab center for ...
Learning to 'just be with questions'
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jan 27Diane Onken Kirkman has a gift for trusting her internal wisdom. A couple of decades ago, she and her husband, Scott, were looking for a small ...
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How about a spiritual potluck?
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jan 13I had a rather blah Christmas, for several reasons. One was that we went on vacation for a week in the middle of December, which meant my shopping ...
Piecing together a spirituality that sustains
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 30Growing up in a suburb of Baltimore, Jean Goldfine encountered two very different religious traditions through her parents. Her grandfather on ...
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Advent: A time to listen
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 15"This is the irrational season, when love blooms bright and wild; had Mary been full of reason, there'd have been no room for the child." -- ...
Faith: The value of sharing the journey
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 01It's not unusual for people who are raised in a faith to stray from it at some point in their lives - often during adolescence or young adulthood. ...
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Long Journey Home: Reflections of an 'immoral' person
By Sarah Reynolds - Nov 19I am a lesbian. My partner and I have a house, a mortgage and two dogs. Had Question 1 failed, we hoped to celebrate our 10th anniversary in March ...
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Long Journey Home: Trusting the journey
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Nov 01Sometimes, for some people, the spiritual journey is more than an interior voyage. It can be very much a bodily experience, as well as a mental ...
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Long Journey Home: Where I come from
By Sarah E. Reynolds - Oct 22What is faith/religion/spirituality for? Before I go any further, cards on the table -- I am a liberal Episcopalian of nearly 40 years' standing. ...















