For months now, when I would think about my blog, the only feeling I experienced was shame. And when I finally visited the site this morning and realized that my last post was almost a year ago–a year!–I am reminded why. Now, in my experience shame is never a useful emotion. Guilt can be–it can …
Author Archives: portiahopkins
Where Heaven Touches Earth
It so happened that I preached last weekend at my church, All Saints Episcopal in Sacramento. I don’t typically re-use sermon ideas as blog posts (You’re welcome! There are plenty of sermonish things already accessible on the internet.), but something about the week’s lectionary readings struck a chord that I would like to share here. …
Peace
Trigger Warning: Hard Things AND Theological Concepts (yikes!) What does “peace” even mean in this world where there is so much suffering? I spent my summer doing pastoral care training and clinical hours with the Night Ministry of San Francisco. Five nights a week I worked on their Care Line–a phone line that handles not …
Sacred
I am not a fan of seeing secular/sacred as a binary, wherein something is either “sacred” or “secular.” Instead, I conceptualize them as a dyad, a construction that leaves a lot of room for the both/and instead of the either/or. In other words, while there may be some things that are purely sacred and others …
To Be and Not To Do
Who AM I when I DO nothing? I don’t know whether most people ask themselves that question regularly. I do, but then I’m quirky. But I do suspect that in this time of COVID-19 quarantine, more people than ever before are being confronted by that question whether they like it or not. In our culture, …
Faith in a Time of Fear
Our current pace of change is dizzying, disorienting. Almost three weeks ago, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California allowed as how it might be a good idea to refrain from shaking hands and intincting (dipping by hand) the bread into the wine at Communion. A few days later, as of the second Sunday …
Recovery from “Salvation”?
“We are still recovering from being ‘saved.’” Last week, this phrase was said repeatedly to me and to others by the instructor of a class called Gospel of the Masses. She was speaking on behalf of the people of color who have been the targets, perhaps the victims, of various evangelical initiatives. Our class spent a …
Advent, Embodied
My body seemed to know that I needed to follow the pattern of the liturgical year long before my mind did. For those who might not know, the liturgical year is the annual seasonal pattern of the Christian year. It begins around the first of December with Advent, celebrates Christmas and Epiphany, moves into the …
Embodied
I am a fifty-eight year old, white, middle-class Protestant American woman. My entire life has pushed me toward disembodiment, toward the separation of my mind and heart from my body. And even more, toward the separation of my thoughts from my feelings. Culture, education, family background have all made it clear that intellect is the …
Faith in the Hard Times
Apparently there are now four new seasons in California: Spring Hotter Than It Should Be Wind, Fire and Smoke Drought/Flood. As I am writing this, we are the midst of Wind and Fire season, and for the third year in a row it seems that much of the state is on fire. My power has …
The Recovering Evangelical 