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Author’s Forward

Over thirty years of ministry, I spent uncounted hours searching for appropriate readings for my Sunday Services. On some topics, like death and Christmas, collections were plentiful. Less seemed available on the important issues of Love, Honesty, Courage, Humor, Health, Families, Fairness, War, Creativity, Healing, Non-Violence and more. Readings I did find on those topics were often problematic, in the main because each seemed undergirded by the author’s specific view of ultimate reality, which could range from traditional theology to secular humanism, with every variant in between.

In my view, written sentiments on timeless subjects like Peace or Honor add little to a worship experience when based upon a theology different from one’s own. Writers who see things my way no doubt inspire me. The rest are left out, no matter how memorable, profound or beautifully worded the author’s work.

Where, I asked myself, are the universal readings? Which writers see beneath differences to what we have in common with one another, with our ancestors and, we imagine, with future generations? As far back as we can trace, parents looked into the eyes of their newborns, young lovers promised each other lifelong fidelity, survivors found ways to reverently bury their dead. Who writes about those things?

I wanted to ponder mystery, wonder, even religious commitment, from the perspective of my own thought, belief and experience. I know of no other foundation upon which you, I or anyone can make our moral decisions. So I wrote these essays, and I read them and I used them in my Sunday Services. What you hold in your hand is a portion of three decades of essays on universal aspects of our common human experience.

After it all, I still have more questions than answers, and that’s good. My words will be more useful to you, if I have managed to avoid that which annoys me in the writings of others—an insistence that you see through my eyes. I much prefer that you see through your own.

In gathering this collection, my aim was not to provide ready-made readings for use in Sunday services—although you are perfectly free to use them that way. Instead, I hope to provide you with fertile soil in which to grow your own ideas. Look at the cover. See the acorn? That’s me. The emerging oak? That’s you.

Thanks for buying my book. I invite you contact me at revangie@tampabay.rr.com, or through the information listed on the copyright page at the front of the book. Tell me what you want to read. Send me your eternal questions. Most important, tell me how you used these essays. Like the authors I admire, what I want most in the world is for my work to be useful.

Yours in the trenches,

Rev. Angie