My head is swirling in words. On Mondays I write pretty much all day ~ well, actually, I sit and ponder and wonder and walk around and sit down and play with consonants and contractions and vowels and grammar and phrasing and sentences and punctuation and paragraphs until they come together in a way that […]
Reflections by Christina Brennan Lee
Reflections written by Christina Brennan Lee for the Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew, downtown Wilmington, Delaware. BIO: For more than 25 years, Christina Brennan Lee was a consultant/trainer in the areas of Interpersonal Skills, Conflict Management, Communications, Strategic Planning, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, etc. She has been a consultant to and has been employed in Corporate, Non-Profit, Public/Govt, Educational, and Religious organizations around the US including the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware. Currently through writing, small group facilitation, and the occasional seminar or retreat, she works in the areas of prayer, spirituality, and adult Christian Education. She has an MA in Religious Studies and Vatican Diploma as Teacher of Religion from St. Charles Borromeo School of Theology, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania; BA, AS, Psychology and Human Resource Management from Widener University, Chester, PA; and a Certificate in Non-Profit Management, University of Delaware, Newark, DE.
Creatively Contemplating Creation
Recently I was asked to write prayers for a camp week in another Episcopal Diocese. I felt honored to be asked and accepted gratefully. Their theme for the week is “Creation” — how God interacts with it, especially water. They’ll be using the Thanksgiving over the Water from the Baptismal service in the Book of […]
Adjusting The Sails
She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails. ~ Elizabeth Edwards* It’s so easy and comfortably trite to say, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” It’s a kindly thought and there’s a limited amount of folksy wisdom in it. A reflection by Christina Brennan […]
Pursuit
It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. ~ Viktor E. Frankl* So, God, Where did some of us get the idea that happiness is our birthright? A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for May 18, 2025. We spend so much of our lives chasing after it and even worrying about how to get it, […]
What Would Nelson Mandela Do?
WWNMD? Well, God, we’re all having some difficult times right now with so much of the political and personal and just general stuff of life. And then … given all the reminders of the highs, the lows, and the politics of Holy Week in its own time, plus recognizing so many faces outside and inside SsAM’s […]
Fish Climbing Trees
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einstein* [1879-1955] A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for the 33rd day in Lent: April 6, 2025. I cannot count the times I have felt […]
A Lenten Practice: Give Up, Take On, and Pray.
“The Rule of Love for all of us is perfectly simple: Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did… When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you’ll find yourself disliking him more. Do […]
Prayer and Pray-er: Why Do We Pray?
Most of us have been taught to pray in childhood, generally by the memorization of prayers such as The Lord’s Prayer, also called the Our Father, and in Church, The Apostles Creed. In Roman Catholic tradition, also the Hail Mary. A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for February 24, 2025. Even those who were not […]
Red Letters and Chopped Guns, Voluntary Simplicity and Social Justice
Who IS this Shane Claiborne person? A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for February 2, 2025. If you heard Fr. Patrick’s sermon last week* you’ll remember him talking about Philadelphia’s own Shane Claiborne.** A 49-year-old man with a kind of raggedy beard with a loving and welcoming intensity that makes one take notice. He has […]
Wingless Angels
In her translation of the portion of Luke’s Gospel for this week, regarding the devil’s statement in verse 10 about God’s own angels, Dr. Gaffney says Biblical Hebrew does not have a word that means simply divine winged being, which is generally translated as angel. A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for January 12, 2025. […]
I will light candles this Christmas
“I will light candles this Christmas” is a poem by Howard Thurman that deserves everyone’s attention. A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for December 22, 2024. Recently, I posted a poem by the incomparable Howard Thurman on my Facebook page, and also on the Facebook page of The Friends of the Episcopal Church of Saints […]
Anticipation: Dr. Wil Gafney and A Woman’s Lectionary
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for November 24, 2024. Advent begins next Sunday! A new Liturgical Season, a new Liturgical Cycle of Readings as we enter Year C of our 3 year lectionary cycle. We’ll be using Dr. Wil Gafney’s A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church for Year C. We used her work […]
Saints, saints, and the rest of us
— a reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for November 3, 2024. All Saints’ Sunday means: It’s November ~ already?! And this year it means we get an hour back ~ you did change your clocks, right? For those of us who were raised Catholic, we remember All Saints’ Day as a Holy Day of Obligation, […]
Did You Ever…?
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for October 13, 2024. Have you ever subscribed to a magazine that piles up somewhere that you have been meaning to read but 10 or 20 or more issues are still pristine and unopened? I’m looking at you, National Geographic… Have you ever subscribed to a newspaper that you […]
Hildegard of Bingen: An Extraordinary Woman For Then AND Now
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for September 22, 2024 This past Tuesday, September 17, was the Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen. I learned of her from the late Rev. Jeanne Linderman, one of the first women ordained in Delaware and an associate priest “here” at the former St. Andrew’s who, with her husband […]
My Something Shiny Syndrome
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for September 2, 2024. For many years as a Consultant/Trainer, I worked with a variety of general personality assessment instruments with organizations and in small groups, in secular and religious settings. They’re fun to do, to discuss our similarities, differences, and misconceptions of ourselves and others. The Myers Briggs […]
Mystery, Miracle, and Dazzling Milestone
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for August 11, 2024. Okay so there’s the Nativity of Jesus, his Baptism, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension … hmmm, are we missing one significant event in his life? Well, let’s go ’way back to when Moses was having his Divine encounters. When he came down from Mt. Sinai with […]
Jesus as the Foundation of our Spiritual Household
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for July 21, 2024. Here we are in 2024 just a few days after an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. How do we take it all in; how do we fix it; how do we reconcile “us” with “them?” What steps might make genuine, helpful, hopeful progress, with […]
What do you know about our Book of Common Prayer?
The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) is that small red book in the pew. Because we use a paper service leaflet each week, we rarely crack open this wonderful resource. On Sundays, in our paper version of the worship service, we generally use The Holy Eucharist: Rite Two that begins on page 355 of our […]
God’s Precious Creation
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for June 9, 2024. Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say, ‘That is an oak tree’, or ‘that is a banyan tree’, the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and […]
