On this day (24 February) in 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I of England. He was trying to make a political point and shore up the Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain. Instead his actions birthed the via media and allowed a tradition rooted not in uniformity but in common prayer to flourish. In pushing Elizabeth out, Rome gave Anglicanism room to breathe. For anyone who has been misunderstood, pressured to choose a side, or told they do not belong, the middle way offers another path. It invites us to honor what has been lost, to guard the sacred interior with gentleness, and to trust that clarity can emerge even without certainty. The middle is not weakness. Exile is not abandonment. It is the quiet space where courage takes root and where God still meets us.

The first of six in our Lenten Series “Good Lord Deliver Us: The Great Litany as Exile Survival Kit.” n a moment when the center has collapsed and the church finds itself wandering in a wilderness not of its choosing, the Great Litany and the First Sunday in Lent meet us with the same invitation: honesty. This reflection explores what it means for the via media to live as a people in exile and to rediscover lament as the first act of faithfulness. hrough Scripture—Jesus in the wilderness, Adam and Eve hiding, the psalmist confessing, Paul proclaiming grace—we learn that deliverance begins not with solutions but with truth-telling. Lament is the language of exiles, the prayer that refuses to hide, the cry from the depths to the God who still hears.

Distractions show up unannounced on the door steps of our lives like undesirable house guests. They subtly intrude our lives out of the blue. If not careful they become your best friend in the time of vulnerability.

The Reverend Pauli Murray knew the wilderness long before Lent ever asked us to enter it. Her life—misnamed, delayed, resisted—mirrors the wilderness stories we hear on the First Sunday in Lent (Year A): eyes opened to the consequences of consciously choosing knowledge and making culture (Genesis 3:7), the ache of hiding and the relief of being seen (Psalm 32), the long arc from trespass to grace (Romans 5:12-19) and Jesus’ own clarity forged in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). This Tradition Remixed reflection traces how Murray’s vocation, her delayed recognition, the stalled release of her commemorative quarter and the witness of My Name is Pauli Murray reveal a church still wandering in its own unfinished wilderness and the grace that persists anyway.

In Ephesians 6:11, the Apostle Paul urges believers to put on the whole armour of God to stand against the wiles of the devil. This call to spiritual warfare is not to be taken lightly, as the enemy's schemes are cunning and relentless. True readiness to stand firm requires a deep, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, not just religious rituals. Let's delve deeper into what it means to stand firm in the face of spiritual battles.

You kneel, whisper sins you'll repeat by sunset, and call it confession—but God heard the lie before your lips moved, so tell me: is the confession for His forgiveness, or just your subscription to sin without the guilt?

Ash Wednesday calls us into a season of honest reckoning, both personally and collectively. This reflection explores the Litany of Penitence as a communal act of clarity and courage, preparing us to live our weekly confession with deeper integrity and hope.

Have you ever stopped to think about why the enemy is so scared when a Child of God finds themselves in the fire? It’s because he knows something we often forget: the fire doesn't consume us; it refines us. And when we walk through those flames with a smile on our faces and praise on our lips, it absolutely terrifies him. He expects us to break, but instead, we burn brighter.

Exploring the Lord’s Prayer and Bad Bunny’s Halftime performance at the Super Bowl (2026). The Our Father is among the most widely known and said prayer in Christianity. A Tradition Remixed reflection about how hearing or saying the Padre Nuestro in Spanish affects how we engage with it.

This reflection explores breath as a sacred marker of belonging, weaving lived experience and Angela N. Parker’s book “If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I?” It names how many women live with “stifled breath” and unvoiced questions in spiritual spaces that constrict the lung of our souls rather than expanding them. This essay also introduces Womanist Theology, a tradition rooted in the real lives of Black women. Readers are invited to notice where their own breath feels tight or free and imagine Parker’s “redemptive self-love” in a grounded acceptance that honors one’s story as holy.

I was unaware of how prevalent religion was and how much it’s assumed to be the default these days in much of the US until quite recently. I’ll be honest, it shocked me. See, I’m Canadian. Talking about your faith is seen as a rude thing to do here. It’s a bit like spitting. Sure, people spit… but not in public. If you spit in public it’s not okay.

People Suck TI is a terrible person. That’s not exactly news. I mean, the guy got arrested for weapons charges and then conveniently “found Jesus” and reformed. He manages to still be a terrible person. It’s pretty impressive. Taking your adult daughter to her gynecologist appointment and insisting on the doctor sharing information with you is creepy as fuck and proves that there is something deeply wrong with the man.

No, not all atheists accept the evidence for evolution but since the two are closely tied in public discourse, here are some arguments!

“If you study science deep enough and long enough it will force you to believe in God” Lord William Kelvin So, Lord Kelvin, clearly a great scientist, believed in God and thought that science confirmed his belief. That’s something that gets trotted out from time to time. It’s one of many arguments that are often used by creationists to promote the idea that science and god are compatible. It’s also not an argument.

“The notion of giving something up for Lent is so misunderstood. For some people it’s ‘Let’s give up some food and lose some weight’ instead of fasting to remind ourselves that our lives are so dependent on God alone.” the Reverend Darrel Proffitt. When Fr. Darrel spoke those words just before Lent started last year, it was the first time I’d heard fasting mentioned from an Episcopal pulpit in years. They sent me on a deep dive into fasting and how it is practiced in the Episcopal Church and across the Anglican Communion. The following essay is the result.

Why Evolution in an Atheist Publication Right off the bat, you don’t need to accept the evidence for evolution to be an atheist and there are many religions who do accept evolution, most famously the Catholic church which believes that evolution is the mechanism God uses to create diversity in life.

If a Watch Require a Watchmaker… There is a common screed among creationists. They look at the world and say that the parts work together so well, fit so well, that it’s clearly the work of a designer. It’s like a watch, perfectly aligned, and if you saw a watch lying in the sand you would not ask how it developed, instead you would think it was made, that someone designed it.

It’s a common refrain: You may disagree with a given religion but you have to respect their beliefs. Why?

This Tradition Remixed reflection explores what an Episcopalian shaped by Sacred Ground learns when listening to the music that sustained Black churches through struggle and liberation, not just in the past but also today. It invites readers to step beyond the Hymnal ’82 and into a humbler posture of learning and listening. One that honors a soundtrack of resilience, confronts gaps in our own formation, and invites us to practice a faith willing to be changed by what it hears.

The purpose of this article is to address some of the common myths about atheism. I won’t be addressing anything else in it, but I will be correcting a number of common misconceptions. A friend of mine sent me the following, it used to be his response to many of the things atheists often hear. “Being an agnostic atheist just means I don’t see enough proof that any deities exist, and choose not to believe in them. Period.