Long Journey Home

By Sarah Reynolds | Nov 13, 2009

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Recent Posts by Sarah Reynolds

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  Living into the call

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 29
  One 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 ...
  

• Christmas memories

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 15
  I 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 ...
  

• Transition, a gift of Advent

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 01
  As the close of another year approaches, it seems a good time to reflect on transitions, those passages where much that seemed settled in our ...
  

• Missing the mark, again

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Nov 17
  I 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 ...
  

• Stories of my grandfather

  By Sarah Reynolds - Nov 03
  My grandfather Sydney ― my mother's dad ― was about as irreligious as they come. Not only was he personally agnostic, he was generally skeptical ...
  

• The ones who wrestle with God

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Oct 20
  In 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 ...
  
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  The body, too, can be a door to the spirit

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Oct 06
  Why do we seek to connect with spirit, both inside ourselves and outside? I think it is because we sense something in ourselves that instinctively ...
  

• The faith that transforms our lives

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Sep 22
  If 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. ...
  
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  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 ...
  

• Meetings with the divine

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Aug 25
  What is a "religious experience"? The phrase is sometimes used humorously to describe any intense, or intensely pleasurable, experience, as in ...
  
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  'Simplify, simplify'

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Aug 11
  After 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 ...
  

• Meddling with the Lord's Prayer

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jul 28
  A 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 ...
  
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  A long way from Blowing Rock

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jul 14
  In the last two or three years, Chris McLarty has written hundreds upon hundreds of haiku. She started using the three-line, 17-syllable poetic ...
  
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  We follow the sun

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jun 30
  It 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 ...
  
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  Wandering to the right place

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jun 16
  Some 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 ...
  
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  A nature-inspired prayer of the senses

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jun 02
  A 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 ...
  
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  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 ...
  

• The good Samaritan and the rich young man

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - May 05
  Recently I talked to the director of a Christian camp, who said something that has stuck in my head: "Christianity is relational, not religious." ...
  
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  A pastor who mingles Orthodox influences with 'sloppy Agape'

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Apr 21
  The Rev. Matt McDonald seems excited, almost bubbly, as he shows a visitor around the converted poultry warehouse on Patterson Hill in Belfast ...
  

• 'Doubting Thomas,' or 'Trusting Thomas'?

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Apr 07
  This coming Sunday, April 11, is the first Sunday after Easter, sometimes known as "Thomas Sunday," because, at least in churches that use the ...
  
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  A reminder of life's fragile beauty

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Mar 25
  For Bonny Versboncoeur, her work as chaplain of Waldo County Home Health & Hospice is "a very rich reminder for me that each moment is precious." ...
  
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  Original sin: Better than perfection?

  By Sarah E.Reynolds - Mar 10
  I came across a quotation from the 20th-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr recently that caught my attention: "Original sin is that ...
  
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  Working with wardens a lesson in 'practical compassion'

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Feb 24
  When 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. ...
  

• A Valentine's Day memory

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Feb 10
  Last 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 ...
  
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  Learning to 'just be with questions'

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jan 27
  Diane 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 ...
  

• How about a spiritual potluck?

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Jan 13
  I 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 ...
  
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  Piecing together a spirituality that sustains

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 30
  Growing up in a suburb of Baltimore, Jean Goldfine encountered two very different religious traditions through her parents. Her grandfather on ...
  

• 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." -- ...
  
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  Faith: The value of sharing the journey

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Dec 01
  It'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. ...
  

• Long Journey Home: Reflections of an 'immoral' person

  By Sarah Reynolds - Nov 19
  I 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 ...
  

• Long Journey Home: Trusting the journey

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Nov 01
  Sometimes, 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 ...
  

• Long Journey Home: Where I come from

  By Sarah E. Reynolds - Oct 22
  What is faith/religion/spirituality for? Before I go any further, cards on the table -- I am a liberal Episcopalian of nearly 40 years' standing. ...