Let me begin with the story of two Rhodes Scholars. One is named William Jefferson Clinton. He went to Georgetown University on scholarship, Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship, and Yale Law School. He served as the 40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas and before that was Arkansas’ Attorney General.

Outside my office window there is a stunning tree. Burnt-red, tall and thick, deep blue sky behind it, and on either side trees still bright green.

“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.” So begins William Williams’ hymn in which Christian life is a pilgrimage along which the believer’s weakness is exposed, and God’s provision abounds. Pilgrimage is a deeply embedded description of the Christian life.

When my children were young, Valentine’s Day was hugely exciting. We made cookies with pink icing in heart shapes.

Can a woman preach? Can women lead worship? Does God ordain authority for women in the church? It is a question that matters to me, as a woman and a priest in the Anglican church, now for more than 25 years. Greek points us toward an answer!

I believe our alphabet reflects one of the most significant inventions of all time. Without it, it would take years for me to learn the hundreds of pictographic signs that would be necessary to write this blog and for you to be able to read it. 

Where I grew up, in southern Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day was a big thing. For weeks before February 2, the papers, the broadcasters asked: would the groundhog—who had a name, Punxatawny Phil, from Punxatawny, Penn.—see his shadow?