Spirit. Spiritual. Spirituality. What do these words mean to you? These are what I call faith words, that is, part of the vocabulary we can use to express our understanding and practice of faith. At SsAM we end the reading of the Sunday Lessons with “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s People.” We READ MORE »
Adult Education
Meditations and teachings plus upcoming Adult Education opportunities at SsAM — the Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew in downtown Wilmington, Delaware.
Reflection: Walking The Road: My Prayer Journey
by Mary Lou Edgar, August 12, 2022 I have always felt that these words, from a song by Joe Wise, were about me —“Lord, teach us to pray. It’s been a long and cold December kind of day. With our hearts and minds all busy in our private little wars, we stand and watch each READ MORE »
A Busy Fall at SsAM
If you did not hear Father Jim’s sermon on the last day of July, he announced that he is looking forward with pleasure to serving as our church’s interim rector through the rest of 2022 and into 2023. This was greeted by applause. He made other announcements well worth mentioning. He announced that the members READ MORE »
Reflection: To Do, To Be, or Not To Be
To Do is To Be ~ Socrates To Be is To Do ~ Plato To Be or Not to Be ~ Shakespeare We in western culture are a doing people. Independent, pull-ourselves-up-by-our-bootstraps kind of people, where asking for help is considered, at least internally, as a weakness. Who hasn’t grown up with the saying God READ MORE »
The Importance of Children
by Mary Lou Edgar. As I was thinking about what I wanted to say, the word “importance” kept coming back to me. Most of us profess to believe that children are important. But there are times when I wonder. My career as a social worker focused on children. I have five children of my own. READ MORE »
Reflection – The Ten Thousand Things
What are we to do? For every one thing we do, ten thousand things are left undone. While one pursuit rejoices in our focus, ten thousand pleading voices cry out in anger and anguish for us to drop what we are doing and hurry to them, to reassess our priorities in their favor, for us READ MORE »
Reflection: What Does Freedom Mean?
by Mary Lou Edgar. Freedom. We hear it all the time, and especially now as we approach Independence Day and celebrate our freedom from the British in 1776. As a child of the ’60s, there was much music that made freedom a household word (Everyone Has Got to be Free, Born Free). At the heart READ MORE »
Reflection — Balancing Act
As the summer deepens, sometimes we fall away from the routines of an “academic year.” Even if we aren’t in school ourselves, there’s a cadence to the Autumn, Winter, Spring cycle in our western lives. Church, school, work, certain sports, tv schedules, even food, and more, all fall into a rhythm that loosens a bit READ MORE »
Reflection – The Trinity – Learning and Understanding
by Mary Lou Edgar. Recently Dan and I watched the movie, The Shack. We had both read the book and been moved by it; however, the movie made it more real. The Shack is the story of a man whose child was murdered. It appears in the story that this man has a dream where READ MORE »
Johannes Chow wins Earth Day recognition
Johannes Chow, a 12-year-old seventh grader at Brandywine Springs School in Wilmington, was recognized for the video “We Have Only One World”. DNREC Secretary Shawn M. Garvin recognized student winners from throughout the state who won this year’s Earth Day video contest hosted by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The contest READ MORE »
Reflection: The End of Separation
On the Day of Pentecost, Christians celebrate the end of separation — separation from God and from each other. Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples of Jesus. We, like them, followers of God, are no longer separate from God. On this day the Holy Spirit began dwelling in every human READ MORE »
Reflection – May We All Be One
I was starting down a different path for this piece. And then the news of the school shooting in Texas hit and on the heels of the horror in Buffalo. Tuesday was the 199th mass shooting THIS YEAR, 2022, 27 of which were at schools. In 2021 there were 693, six-hundred ninety-three, mass shootings in READ MORE »
Reflection – We All Deserve A Chance
by Mary Lou Edgar. Many of you know that I worked in adoption and foster care for my entire career. May is Foster Care Month and I thought I would share how my work relates to my spiritual life. I knew I wanted to adopt children when I was very young. I thought about it READ MORE »
Reflection: Pursue What You Love
When jazz pianist Rich Harney became a Christian, he was told he had to give up playing the devil’s music. He loved that music but he loved Jesus more. What was he to do? What he did was to leave that fundamentalist church, become an Episcopalian, and play jazz for many decades. Love finds a READ MORE »
National Issues and the Episcopal Church
Women’s Health May 7, 2022 — Since 1967, The Episcopal Church has maintained its “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions [about the termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them.” In light of the READ MORE »
Reflection – Listen to the Word Proclaimed
Imagine yourself at the theater, you’ve settled into your seat, ready for the curtain to open. You have your script of the play open and ready to follow as the curtain reveals the actors, and the dialogue begins. The lines on page one move quickly and as the actors are speaking, there’s an uneven rustling READ MORE »
Books and Videos About Race, Race Relations, and Racial History – A Bibliography
Here is a list of books, articles, and videos that enlighten us about race, race relations, racial history, and related topics. Developing a SsAM Bibliography… We are developing a bibliography of books (and articles). This bibliography is part of that effort that began when 60 of us met on June 26, 2020 to discuss READ MORE »
Reflection – Easter Resolutions and Real Change
Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter, May 1, 2022 by Mary Lou Edgar. “Just after daybreak Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” –John 21:4 Can I Change? Easter is such an emotional time. Lent has ended, we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, and I get READ MORE »
Reflection: Sent Forth In Peace
This Sunday, if you hear the words of John 20:19-31 spoken aloud, please pay attention to these two sentences: Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” At the time, Jesus was speaking to his disciples, frightened men who had barred the door and locked themselves in a room. READ MORE »
Easter Reflection: Are You THERE?
By this time, a while ago, I’d be elbow deep in fake grass, bags of jelly beans, and cleaning out last year’s Easter baskets. The kids, and later grandkids, would be dyeing eggs of chickens as I kept the eggs and bunnies of chocolate well hidden. As a kid, and later as an adult with READ MORE »
