Author: Ellie Harty

On a recent February Sunday at Mass, we celebrated Black History Month. Our pastor, who is Caucasian, donned colorful, African-inspired vestments. After the welcome and gathering, he went down to the aisle and called forth two of the parish’s African-American elders. A tall woman and tall man in African garb joined their hands over him…
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Well, to answer the question with a shaky “yes”, I often have to turn to those with thoughts much wiser than mine.  Brian Cahill on SemNet Live in February 2015 tackled the topic in Our Troubled Church and Why Some of Us Stay and helped reacquaint me with some of that wisdom. He quotes Michael…
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Here I am again – perhaps you are, too – going this way and that about the Church, about women and all genders and the Church, about…well, you know the drill. I hear the stories all the time about people, especially the young people we so desperately need, finding “church” elsewhere. This is particularly true…
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This weekend I was searching through articles and websites for material for an ongoing feature on women I suggested for our church bulletin during Women’s History Month this March. (Funny thing about suggesting: you suddenly become the “volunteer” to put it all together! I really didn’t mind though because I had wanted this kind of…
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Envisioning, imagining what Church could be in an age in which we desperately need the wisdom and insight of new inclusive leadership and ministry, including our own, I came upon this article called Quest for the Sacred: Walk in the Church of the Woods by Meggen Watt Petersen. She describes a church in New Hampshire…
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I’m not very good at the contemplative “time-out” in life. I’ve tried but have never been able to meditate in any frequent or ordered way. I want action, I say to myself. I want us to get out there and work for justice, march for peace, witness for inclusion and equality, not just sit around…
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How rich the Church would be if only the blessed gifts outlined by poet, Jan Richardson below – and so many, many more that you could name – from all genders – were permitted. I’m not telling you here anything you don’t already know, but sometimes, I think, in this week of the celebration of…
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I love this Leonard Cohen song, presented here as a poem. It is both a realistic and hopeful take on the future – and on our mission for peace and justice. As he says, “They’re going to hear from me”… and from all of us.   Happy New Year! Anthem By Leonard Cohen The birds they…
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IN THIS HOLY SEASON                IN HER HOLY VOICE       WHAT WOULD MARY SAY?     WHAT WOULD MARY DO?                                  

Sometimes it’s just better to be simple, to state the obvious, in this week before the celebration of the birth of Christ:  We all remember and rejoice that, within her self on that great birth day, Mary literally transubstantiated bread and wine into body and blood to create her son – many believe – the…
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