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The taste and smell of a madeleine cake dipped in tea

We all have memories we’d rather forget—wounds that sting when touched, regrets that still echo, mistakes we’d pay dearly to undo. And every so often, a story or film captures that longing perfectly. A character walks into a clinic or signs a consent form or swallows a pill, and just like that, the painful memory is gone. It’s the premise of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where a couple, desperate to un-love each other, erases the past. It’s in Severance, where workers split their minds in two—one for work, one for life—so the burdens of one world can’t spill into the other. Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House takes it even further: you can upload your entire memory and choose when, or whether, to look back at all. These stories raise a question most of us carry quietly: wouldn’t it be easier if we could forget? Wouldn’t we be freer, lighter, more at peace if we could excise the hard parts—the guilt, the sorrow, the failure? But each of these stories arrives at the same unsettling ...
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Reflection on “Where Sea Meets Sky”

Mary Louise Porter at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art Was on View: December 21, 2024 – May 18, 2025 There is a sacred hush in the space where sea meets sky—a liminal line both constant and always changing. This exhibition, curated in partnership between the Walter Anderson Museum of Art and painter Mary Louise Porter, honors that threshold, inviting viewers not merely to look, but to pause, to breathe, and to be drawn into wonder. Porter’s work is a meditation on the Gulf Coast’s quiet majesty. A Louisiana native now rooted in Mississippi, she brings with her the eyes of a newcomer and the heart of one who has stayed. Her canvases reflect a reverent attention to the elemental drama unfolding along the coast: water and light, color and movement, impermanence and return. In Where Sea Meets Sky, we encounter not only static images but a dynamic relationship. Porter’s Horizon Blocks—modular painted boxes she will rearrange over the course of the exhibition—are more than aesthetic devices...
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Homily for Easter 5, Year C

https://vimeo.com/1086115750?share=copy  - Video Presentation   It’s strange, what we carry with us.   Not in your pockets. Not in your purse.   The burdens of which I speak are too big, too heavy for pockets and purses. You know the ache I mean. The empty chair at the table. The diagnosis you didn’t expect. The silence from the friend who used to call. The newsfeed that makes your heart sag.   We don’t talk about them all that much. But we know them. We return to them—sometimes in dreams, sometimes in silence.   And maybe you’ve heard people say, “But Easter has come! The tomb is empty! The stone is rolled away!” And you want to say, “Yes. Yes, I believe that. I do.” [1]   But.   There are days it still feels like Holy Saturday. [2] The ache. The in-between. Not Friday’s despair, but not Sunday’s joy. Just that… space.                      Whe...
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Homily for Easter 4 Year C 2025

Homily for Easter 4 Year C Revelation 7:9-17 Flannery O’Connor tells the story of a woman who had a vision.  Her name was Mrs. Turpin.  Big woman. Good shoes. Nice clothes. Head held high. She thanks Jesus she’s not like others.  You know the kind—the others--smudged kids, poor grammar, the wrong color. She’s got categories. And, she keeps them in order. God first. White folks next. Respectable. Hardworking. Clean. Mrs. Turpin is in a doctor’s waiting room, scanning the crowd like a ledger. White trash. Dirty. Colored folks too loud. That woman’s got too many children. That boy’s got no manners. She’s got them all ranked in her heart. But then—then there’s a girl. College girl. Quiet… Angry. Reading a book: Human Development. And suddenly, something happens. No one sees it coming. The girl stands up—and hurls the book, right at Mrs. Turpin’s face. Bang. Right between the eyes. Then, she lunges, grabs her throat, and says: “Go back to hell where you came from.” That’s it. ...
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Homily for Easter 3 Year C

  Revelation 5:11-14 https://vimeo.com/1080414915 If you and I were writing the story of the world— if we were putting someone at the center— who would we pick? Maybe a king. Maybe a president. Maybe some powerful CEO. Someone who knows how to win, how to rule, how to make things happen. That’s how the world has always thought. The biggest throne. The sharpest sword. The loudest voice. That’s who rules. And truth be told, it’s what we expect too, isn’t it? We assume the strong survive. The bold rise. The rich inherit the earth. That’s the air we breathe. But John—John sees something else. John looks. John listens. John writes from exile, from the rocky island of Patmos, far from any throne or palace.  And what he sees is this: The center of the universe is not a throne draped in gold.  The center is a Lamb. Imagine walking into the throne room of the universe… and finding a lamb.  Not a lion.  Not a general.  Not a Caesar.  A lamb that looks like it ha...
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Homily for Easter 2 Year C 2025

Homily for Easter 2 Year C 2025 Revelation 1:4–8 Grace to you, and peace— peace from the One who is, and who was, and who is to come. [1] That’s how it begins. Not just a hello, not just a good morning, but a thunderclap of eternity. From the edge of empire, a voice is writing. Not from Rome. Not from the temple in Jerusalem. Not from a palace. But from exile. A man named John. Not John the Baptist. Not John the disciple. Just—John. Writing from Patmos, a rocky outcrop in the Aegean, a place where prophets get parked when the empire doesn’t like what they say. And John writes to seven churches—real places. Smyrna. Pergamum. Laodicea. Little gatherings of Jesus-followers, meeting behind closed doors, watching their backs. Because Rome was watching. And Rome didn’t like rivals. Now John writes what nobody dares to say aloud: Jesus—not Caesar—is Lord. [2] Not only that—Jesus is ruler of the kings of the earth. Did you hear it? Ruler. Of all of them. Of Nero. Of Domitian. Of the local gove...
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