The Garden Before Grace By +Brian Ernest Brown, CWC Twenty-seven years ago, on a Summer Solstice long ago, I completed my third-degree initiation within the Wiccan tradition and took vows that felt, at the time, both solemn and eternal. It was a night of deep symbolism and sacred friendship, celebrated…
Category: Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
Reflections and musings from my meanderings in these here Ozark Mountains: life, love, loss, laughter, and the long practice of grace.
Dancingbird Gallery & Studio
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Holy Springs, Open Doors, and Coming Home from Another Direction
Again I find myself returning to the theme of home, how a place can call you back long after you’ve left it, and how returning isn’t always going backward. Sometimes it’s a forward movement from another direction, a circling flight that finally brings you to where you were always meant…
Dancingbird Gallery & Studio
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Heat, Hummingbirds, and the Hazards of Creativity: Notes from the Torch
Heat, Hummingbirds, and the Hazards of Creativity: Notes from the Torch This morning began with clarity, the rare kind. A soft, cooling breeze slipped through the Ozark hills, and for a brief, holy hour the world felt fresh… and so did I. My mind was sharp, ideas were flowing, and…
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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There’s No Place Like Home: Can You Ever Go Home?
There’s no place like home but can you ever go home? Conventional wisdom seems to say no, you can never go home. Such wisdom would suggest that once you leave, things change and try as you might it’s awful hard to find your way back to that which you left….
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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Who Does God Hate?
I was thinking about the quote from Anne LaMott I posted the other day on my Facebook page. I noticed folks copied and pasted it all over the place.Here was the quote: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God…
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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Betrayal: That Cold-Hearted Kiss
I had written this several years ago after Holy Week and Easter. And I thought it appropriate to post it here at this time. I hope you find it as illuminating reading it as I did writing it. Blessings upon your head, your heart, your home, and your own loved…
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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The Seal of Confession
Confession is such a spiritually important and often over looked and misunderstood sacrament of the Church. And while I’d agree that most of the traditional seven sacraments are misunderstood and often overlooked it has been my experience as a priest that the Sacrament of Confession tops such a list. A…
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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Validity, Legitimacy, & Education
Recently I had the occasion to dialogue with a young priest in the ISM (Independent Sacramental Movement) on Facebook. While he wasn’t necessarily young in age, he hadn’t been ordained long. The conversation started with some folks talking about the need for better training for clergy in the ISM, or…
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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Coming Out
“Coming Out” is a loaded phrase. It’s wrapped in innuendo, cultural baggage, and no small amount of expectation, but now that I have your attention… In some ways, what I’m about to say has been a long time coming. In other ways, it feels anticlimactic, because most of you already…
Reflections, Musings & Meanderings
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Harvest Home
Autumn is falling on the Ozark Mountains, the leaves are changing and the air is crisp in the mornings and cool in the evenings. The last of the harvest season is upon us. The pumpkin patches are full and soon the Great Pumpkin will arise from the Pumpkin Patch, or…