Remembering MLK Jr

Nearly nine years later...let's jumpstart this blog!

When I began SantosWoodcarvingPopsicles, I was  interested in the intersection between the "sacred" and the "profane"...the holy and the everyday.  I was in the midst of leaving Seminary and entering into ordained ministry and this blog gave me an outlet for exploring questions of spirituality and theology that were on my mind and heart in the midst of that important time.  Now, some nine years later, I feel called to re-embark on the journey of the SantosWoodcarvingPopsicles blog...and continue to explore theology, spirituality, and the ways that God interacts with, and enlivens our world.  In addition, I am going to write more broadly, and share even more widely about my interests and thoughts.  After spending a stint in ministry in the mid-Atlantic in an Episcopal School and then later a longer stint in parish ministry, I now find myself back in Episcopal School ministry in Florida, where my ministry has grown and thrived, but also has had some interesting twists and turns.

A few of my interests, which I will explore in this newly envisioned blog are represented by the following wordcloud - made with the cool tool at wordle.net

So, away we go...it seems like the battery is charged and the engine is up and running!

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

From Brother Curtis Almquist of the St. John the Evangelist Society in Cambridge, MA (our fair city)...a message of hope in the Resurrection!   I had the pleasure of spending time with Br. Curtis in a few different settings over the years, and find him to be just a wonderful presence, and natural evangelist of the Gospels! Read his Easter Sermon!!


~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

Experience the Resurrection! – Br. Curtis Almquist

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Br. Curtis Almquist

6

John 20:1-18

Jesus greets Mary Magdalene in the garden near his tomb.  He has come back from the dead, alive, resurrected, and yet he is very wounded.  Jesus’ body is still wounded by the scourgings that preceded his crucifixion, and the horrific piercing wounds to his side and to his hands, hanging from the cross.  None of these wounds is healed.  And Jesus’ heart is also wounded by the betrayal and abandonment of his closest friends, the disciples who literally left Jesus hanging.  The women, who were there when their Lord was crucified, witnessed it all, a horrific experience.  And this surely leaves the women wounded by the trauma. Meanwhile the disciples are hiding – hiding in their own fear, sorrow, and shame – and this, too, shows a wounding.[i]  No one can hurt us like we can hurt ourselves, when we become our own worst enemy.  On this day of resurrection, everyone in the Gospel story is not okay.  Everyone is wounded, and this is likely true for many of us here. We can simultaneously acknowledge Jesus’ resurrection and, at the same time, acknowledge that everything is not all right in our world or in our own lives.  Many of us here today may bear the wounds of life, of one sort or another.  Bishop Barbara Harris says, “We are a resurrection people living in a Good Friday world.”

This is why Saint Paul speaks of “the hope of the resurrection.” 

Read the rest HERE

In the spiritual garden of our lives

In the spiritual garden of our lives

by Charles LaFond
“Tenemos” is a Greek word originally referring to the cultivated land that wrapped around the temple – a set-aside bit of holy garden one had to cross in order to enter the temple. The tenemos was like the moat that wraps around a castle. Our senses, touch, sight, and hearing are that same tenemos – that same temple-garden, which is the gateway from physical life to the spiritual world within and around us.

One day I was walking near the pond of my New Hampshire writing retreat, Blackwater Bluff, and there was a heavy mist on the ground clinging close to the tall grasses and bright yellow wild orchids. The mist was only a few feet high. I sat down so as to be engulfed in the mist – it was like entering a moist, foggy world where vision was nearly impossible – and mysterious. Then I stood up and my head pushed back up into the clarity above the mist, and I could see shapes and colors and beauty again at a long distance. Suddenly I began to understand the spiritual life not as something we attain, way out in front of us, like some reward for self-discipline or heavenly peace; nor the finish line of a race. Rather, I began to understand what the early Christian Celtic mystics were saying about the spiritual life and the physical life being parallel – one atop the other, and each within reach.

The Celtic priests referred to heaven as being a foot above one’s reach. Our Roman Christian heritage has trained us that, like the altar in our great cathedral, the HOLY is way, way, way up there, way beyond the floor where we are allowed to sit, way up those great steps, up past that rood screen, past the choir stalls, past the altar rail (designed as a barrier) and way up around the “high altar” where only priests may roam in cassocks. But that is a lie. 

Read it all HERE at Episcopal Cafe or at the Daily Sip, a ministry of St John’s Cathedral in Denver, CO 

About Chimayo, New Mexico, from the "Taos Unlimited" Blog

About Chimayo, from the "Taos Unlimited" Blog:

Chimayo: An Historic Spanish Settlement The name Chimayo derives from a Tewa name for a local landmark, the hill of Tsi Mayoh. This tiny village, set in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains about 25 miles north of Santa Fe, was originally established as a penal colony for the Spanish Empire after their reconquest of New Mexico in 1680. At that time, Spanish colonists settled in the northwestern section of the Chimayo Valley. These hard-working and hardy settlers were farmers and weavers. They raised horses and sheep, and kept fruit orchards. They settled the Chimayo area in hopes of receiving the title of "Hidalgo" (or nobleman) if they prospered. Frequently they were granted land, money and farming implements to help with their struggles in the harsh, dry climate of the high desert. Chimayo is a town of numerous plazas and placitas. Plazas were rectangles of connected rooms surrounding an open space used as a community vegetable garden. Plazas were originally built for defensive purposes to protect the colonial farmers from raiding Comanches and other tribes. Plaza del CerroOf note is the fortified Plaza of San Burenaventura, now called the Plaza del Cerro, built in 1749. Today it is the last surviving Spanish fortified plaza in the United States. The Plaza del Cerro is a square built of connecting adobe buildings with two narrow entrances. A watch tower, or torreon, is set on the south side, while a small chapel sits on the western side. There were originally no windows on the outside, and adobe watchtowers probably stood outside each of the walls at one time. The two small entrances, (described as no wider than an ox) on the north and south could be easily and quickly closed to keep out attackers, and the residents could have survived for some time in the plaza interior, although enemies would have had an easy time cutting off their water supply. Plaza del Cerro has one of the oldest intact crop irrigation canals, or acequias, possibly built by Indians prior to the coming of the Spanish. Acequias are the life-blood of Northern New Mexico's agricultural areas, funneling snow melt or river water to fields and pastures, where it is allowed to flood agricultural land. Spanish settlers always built their plazas next to these canals, which had diversion channels running into the plaza gardens. Crops inside and outside of the plaza were watered by raising or lowering small gates to channel the water. The Potrero plaza of Chimayo is known internationally for its tiny chapel and shrine, the Santuario de Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas, commonly known as el Santuario de Chimayo. El Santuario de Chimayo has become known as the "Lourdes of America," for its legendary healing powers based on the miracle of Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas. This small chapel attracts close to 300,000 visitors a year, most of whom take away with them a bit of the "holy dirt" from a small well in the sacristy. The Santuario also attracts thousands of pilgrims who walk dozens, and sometimes hundreds of miles each Easter week to offer prayers of thanks and ask for blessings. El Santuario de Chimayo is the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. Chimayo is also famous for its heirloom chile (Capsicum annuum "Chimayo"). Of all the crops grown in and around the plazas, none was more important than chile. Chile was not only a food but also a medicine. For cooking, many preferred the milder varieties, and Chimayo is best known for its mild but extremely flavorful peppers. Farmers watched their chile crops closely, not only for harvest, but also because chile was used as a currency for barter, the only crop which was considered valuable enough to be used for this purpose. Traditional and Contemporary Arts in Chimayo The tiny town is also well known for the weaving traditions of the Ortega and Trujillo families, who for generations have been producing textiles woven in the Spanish Colonial tradition. By the beginning of the twentieth century, weavings by the Ortega and Trujillo family artists had become so much admired, that the style was named the Chimayo style of weaving. The Ortega and Trujillo families now each operate their own galleries, along with those who still practice other traditional arts such as tin smithing, wood carving, and creating retablos, or paintings of saints on wooden slabs. Other traditional Spanish and Tewa Indian arts still found in Chimayo include bultos (sculptures), colcha embroidery and pottery. Chimayo is also home to numerous very talented contemporary artists as well. Set in the stunning high desert landscape and traditional adobe architecture, the traditional and contemporary artists of Chimayo attract a good deal of tourism to the area. Pictured top right: Exterior wall of the Santuario de Chimayo Pictured middle right: Archival photo of the Plaza del Cerro Pictured bottom right: Roadside stand promises "Holy" Chimayo Chiles More About the Miracle of el Santuario de Chimayo Back to The High Road to Taos