Dylan's lectionary blog

announcing the obvious

Dear All,

The good news is that I am planning to complete my Ph.D. dissertation this year, have signed contracts for two publications I'm really excited about, and am absolutely loving my work with IMPACT Boston -- teaching and coaching in assertiveness, boundary-setting, violence prevention, and self-defense in their regular classes (many of which, I'm gratified to say, take place in shelters for the homeless and for domestic violence survivors), certainly, but I'm also very glad to say that I've been working with IMPACT colleagues with experience in congregational ministry and violence prevention to craft a program called FaithIMPACT. FaithIMPACT is geared specifically toward clergy and lay leaders in communities of faith who want to be effecting change agents in the face of fear, and especially around issues of healthy relationships and interpersonal and community violence. I'll be blogging more about it, I'm sure, in the future, but for now I hope it suffices to say that I think it might make a major, concrete, and rapid difference in the lives of people and communities, and I'm working hard to help it get some initial funding and sites to offer the course.

The bad news, predictably, is that I've found that it's just not possible to cobble together a living from multiple part-time and one-off gigs, launch and nuture a few curricula (I'm still working with John deBeer on the Connect, Commit, and Covenant courses, on top of launching FaithIMPACT), complete multiple scholarly and popular writing projects, finish a Ph.D. dissertation, and stay holistically healthy without something suffering. Yes, just about anyone else could have told me so from the start, but I can be a bit slow on the uptake.

Having blogged the lectionary for over three years, I've decided that the best way I can serve myself, God's Church, and God's mission might be to take a hiatus from lectionary blogging for a bit. I do hope to return to it, and I'd love for that to be sooner rather than later, and in the meantime I'm still accepting speaking, preaching, retreat, and consulting work (my rent remains the same, after all). I hope that what I've written thus far can serve y'all well during the hiatus. The Spirit of Truth is Jesus' to give and not mine, but I can give you this:

• The "search this site" function in the left-hand sidebar. If you're preaching a sermon and the gospel text is John 9, verses something to something, enter -- using the quotation marks -- "John 9" in that search box and click the button, and you'll see everywhere I've used that phrase since this blog started in December of 2003. You can also search for key words and phrases that way, e.g., "Holy Spirit."
• There are categories of posts in the right-hand sidebar if you scroll down a bit. My posts have been categorized by liturgical season, pastoral occasion, and topic as well as biblical book. The category system isn't foolproof, as I might have categorized a post differently than you would, and occasionally I might have forgotten to assign categories to a post, but the categories should still be useful, particularly to someone putting together a small group study on a particular book or theme.
• I know many are looking for Holy Week preaching resources. You'll find my previous posts for Holy Week here.
• I will answer email to the best of my ability. Every now and then, some nasty person or group of people decides to start some kind of 'email bombing' campaign of sending me hundreds or thousands of messages a day, so if I don't respond within a reasonable time frame, feel free to remind me again if there's something pending I can help you with.

I plan still to blog at Grace Notes, on the U2charist Resources page (which for some reason still doesn't appear in the site navigation menus -- I need to sort that out at some point), and, if I have something to say about Anglican news that a zillion others haven't already said, at Anglicana.
And, as ever, I appreciate your prayers, your encouragement, and your support. I hope to hit an astonishingly productive streak and be able to rejoin you soon, as I learn as much or more from interacting with y'all than you get from me.
Blessings,
Dylan

domain name problem solved

Dear All,

I'm glad to say that the domain name has been solved -- and it did turn out to be an honest mistake rather than an attempted domain hijack.

Phew! I'm looking forward to concentrating on CONTENT rather than the technology that helps me get the content out there.

Blessings,

Dylan

just when I thought things couldn't get more interesting ...

Dear All,

I discovered this morning that someone has seized control of all of the Internet domain names that I own. Actually, I have a pretty good idea of who it was and how it happened -- and also that it was the result of an honest mistake on this person's part and not anything sinister. I'm trying to straighten out the matter, and expect that it will be resolved quickly with no interruption in service.

But just in case, I want to let y'all know what the backup plan is.

The good news is that I still have complete control of SarahLaughed.net content, and this other party does not, so my work won't be deleted and should remain accessible. If you find that you cannot access the lectionary blog at its usual address, go to:

http://dylan.typepad.com/lectionary/

I'm sorry to say that if the domain name SarahLaughed.net goes down or points to a site other than mine, then all internal links on the site (i.e., links to other places within the SarahLaughed.net domain) will be broken. You should, however be able to get where you want to go if you change the "www.sarahlaughed.net" part of the address to "dylan.typepad.com ."

If you are trying to email me and either you get a bounce message or you don't get a reply, try emailing me at:

[email protected]

Thanks for your patience, and please pray for the speedy return of control of SarahLaughed.net to its rightful owner! I really did not need this headache, and I hope it goes away quickly.

Blessings,

Dylan

I'm back!

Dear All,

This is a test post to see whether the technical problem that's kept me from posting lo these many weeks has finally been solved. Here's hoping!

Blessings,

Dylan

UPDATE 2007-12-30 -- Hurrah! It appears that I've finally identified the problem. I'm traveling this week and may not be able to post, and there's still technical tweaking to do, but expect to see me fully back online soon!

heads-up: Palm Sunday, Easter 2, and Easter 3

Dear All,

I plan to post my Palm Sunday blog tomorrow (Wednesday) and my Maundy Thursday blog the day after tomorrow (Thursday).

I'd like to give y'all an early heads-up for the second and third Sundays of Easter, though (April 15 and 22). I've written reflections for those Sundays, and they're published in the April 3 print issue of the Christian Century -- a magazine I've long been a fan of, and am honored to contribute to. Not all of the content from their print magazine is published on their website; while you can see previous years' lectionary reflections online, the current year's can be found only in print. So please do subscribe or pick up a newsstand copy of the Christian Century, and if you want to see something from me online on the Easter 2 and Easter 3 texts, don't forget about my previous blog entries and sermons dealing with them:

"Touching the Wounded Body of Christ in the World" (a Year A sermon on the same gospel passage)
Second Sunday of Easter, Year C (a lectionary blog entry from 2004)
Day of Pentecost, Year B (a lectionary blog entry dealing in part with John 20:19-23)
Christ the King, Year B (a lectionary blog entry dealing in part with Revelation 1:1-8)

I hope these are helpful -- and that you find the Christian Century pieces helpful as well.

what do y'all need for Holy Week?

Dear All,

At this point, for Holy Week I plan to blog for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, as I have in previous years. What do y'all need? Will that do? Based on what you've seen from me in Holy Week of previous years, do you have any requests, or anything you want to say?

Blessings,

Dylan

Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C

Dear All,

While you're waiting for something new for me on the readings for this Sunday (I have to apologize, but immediate practical concerns have gotten in the way of my posting thus far), I hope these previous entries on gospel stories of Jesus' transfiguration (and I always end up saying more about Luke -- it's my favorite gospel, after all) will prove helpful.

Thanks for your patience, folks.

Blessings,

Dylan

[Update 02-17-07: I apologize -- life got in the way, and I just didn't have it in me to come up with an entirely new creation this week, despite that Luke's version is my favorite of the stories of Jesus' transfiguration. I hope that my prior reflections on it were helpful, and I promise I'll be back with renewed energy next week. Thanks for your patience.]

email administrivia

Dear All,

Email frustrations in our household reached a peak last week. We just plan weren't getting some emails (with the omissions according to no discernible pattern), I was having a huge problem with spam-generated backscatter emails because of my former work with The Witness magazine, and we were sick of having to go through all kinds of contortions when we needed to send email while traveling or on a network other than our one at home. Gmail was a help, but not enough of one for us.

So we've finally upgraded our email to a provider who does nothing but email. $50/year for two email boxes to collect email from an unlimited number of addresses we specify, so the service works for all of the Internet domains we're juggling in this household. And as of this moment, it all seems to be working seamlessly.

All that's to say that if you have sent me email recently that you suspect may have dropped into whatever Mariana Trench in cyberspace into which some of our email was falling, please feel free to send it again, and please be patient with me if any kinks do pop up in the new system over the next couple of days.

Thanks -- and blessings!

Dylan

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Dear All,

I apologize for the delays. I'll be posting tomorrow, I promise -- and thanks for understanding.

Blessings,

Dylan

MLK Day and a request for requests

Dear All,

It has just occurred to me that a great many congregations celebrated Martin Luther King Day today, making adjustments in the readings and/or sermon content in light of that. Had I thought of this earlier in the week, I might have done a lectionary blog entry for MLK Day as well as one for the Epiphany 2 readings. And that made me wonder:

For what occasions, other than the usual Sunday calendar, would lectionary blog entries be helpful? If you've got requests -- U.S. Independence Day? A particular saint's day? Holy Name? Or something not currently on The Episcopal Church's calendar in any official way, like "Blue Christmas" liturgies? If so, please let me know in the comments below. I'm still doing SarahLaughed.net in my spare time, so if I don't think of something until the last minute, I'm not always able to carve out the time to do an extra entry, but I would like to be as helpful to readers as possible.

Thanks for reading, supporting, and offering feedback, and may God bless you richly in your ministries!

Dylan