When I became a postulant for the priesthood, my bishop reminded me that I would need to be in contact with him on Ember Days. “Do you want me to write a real letter?” I asked, miming a hand moving across paper. He laughed and replied that e-mail would work just fine.

I promptly went home and began researching everything I could about Ember Days and the letters that accompany them, since I wasn’t terribly sure what was expected of me. Clergy friends offered everything from “oh, it’s not that big a deal” to “yes, you should take this very seriously.” Okey-dokey, then. My favorite comment was the advice not to write a “having-a-good-time, wish-you-were-here, postcard-from-summer-camp kind of letter.” At least that began to give me the hint of a direction.

The Prayer Book, usually the first place I turn for the inside scoop, told me when Ember Days were (more on…

When this blog began several weeks ago, many of the contributors made reference to the Pew research study that reported that “more than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all.” I’m not sure if any of the other contributors to this blog count themselves in that 28 percent, but I do.

And maybe it is because I made the leap from one denomination to another that I feel so moved to explain what I love about my church. (Converts are notoriously obnoxious about this stuff!) In my last post I promised to discuss more about my own personal sense of Anglican identity, so here goes.

I am an Episcopalian by personal choice and through the grace of God. My family of origin, as well as my husband’s family, are all Roman Catholic; I can’t emphasize…

Last weekend I had the opportunity to worship at Christ Church Cathedral as part of the Flower Festival weekend. As the celebration of the Holy Eucharist came to a close, the presider, the Rt. Rev. George Wayne Smith, Bishop of Missouri, turned to the Most Rev. Daniel Deng Bul Yak, Archbishop of Sudan, and invited him to impart the final blessing on the congregation. The words he used to extend this invitation were something like, “Archbishop, my brother, would you bless us in the language of your birth?”

It was, for me, a powerful moment. The Archbishop spoke in what I am told was Dinka, an African language utterly unfamiliar to me (and, I would guess, to nearly everyone else in the Cathedral). And yet, at the moment when he raised his hand high to begin making the sign of the cross over us, every person in that church knew that…