Trinity Church

Jesus has poured out his loving grace on us so that we have harmony with God. We do not claw our way back into God’s graces, we submit to the Kingship of His Son and become members of His Kingdom.

blessed assurance I had two conversations this week about assurance. One was with someone who was lamenting their own lack of assurance-they struggle to trust that they are forgiven and saved because they can see the sin in their own life. The second conversation was with my husband. We were at a funeral recently whe...

The movie is a great example of how someone can tell a story that is permeated with the gospel, even if they don't mean to. I have taught many times about how Paul kept finding ways that God was speaking to other cultures when he was evangelizing (read Acts 17 for an example).

Watching Field of dreams again Hello Saints,First a quick reminder that tomorrow is the bishop's annual visit to Trinity. We will be receiving two people into the Anglican Communion as well. We encourage everyone to make it to church this weekend if you can. As an added incentive, there will be a tasty feast for coffee hour after...

Latest Blog from Rev. Canon Tracey Russell & Rev. Jamey Russell.
As the season for vacations begins, Jamey and I thought we’d make some suggestions for summer reading. These are books we love, or authors we love, in both fiction and non-fiction. We also got some suggestions from our son and our Bishop!

SUMMER READING SUGGESTIONS As the season for vacations begins, Jamey and I thought we’d make some suggestions for summer reading. These are books we love, or authors we love, in both fiction and non-fiction. We also got some suggestions from our son and our Bishop!

https://www.trinitywashpa.org/post/that-right-kind-of-feeling..that right kind of feeling
agzemrzycki
2 hours ago
3 min read

Hello Saints,

I recently listened to a in interview with author and Anglican priest The Rev. Tish Harrison Warren. She is the author of two amazing books, Liturgy of the Ordinary & Prayer in the Night. She is also a columnist for the New York Times. Both Tracey and I would highly recommend her writings, and, well, she also happens to be one of Tracey's friends.



Warren's latest offering is called What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience. The book was the subject of an interview on The Language of God Podcast. In Warren's previous writings she has written about holding onto faith when life takes its darker turns; when we feel overwhelmed like the writer of Psalm 88. She has also written about finding joy and worship in everyday life.



Now she is tackling another interesting subject. How to hold onto faith when everything is…. just fine. She herself admits she writes about what she is currently or has recently experienced. After the difficulties she wrote about in Prayer in the Night, life has settled down. Routines have been established. She and her husband get their kids off to school, do their work and ministry, attend and run services, have their spiritual disciplines, and keep their Sabbath.



And yet, she found herself in a spiritual desert. She didn't feel close to God. Her faith felt forced. She just wasn't "feeling it" for an extended period of time. She found wisdom and comfort by reading the desert fathers and mothers. Though their lives were very different from hers (and ours) she found they too would go through long periods of "aridity." However, they found that by persevering they experienced incredibly spiritual growth. The book is a reflection on their, and her, experience.

The evangelical church has been so important for introducing the idea that experiencing -and expressing- emotions during worship and in our prayer time is appropriate, even encouraged. But, as Warren says, it seems we've gone over the edge and now our faith is tied to producing that right kind of feeling. We think that If we don’t feel anything, God must not have been as present. And worse, we think it's probably our fault. I saw this recently when I spoke to someone in their 20's. They said they thought something was wrong with them because they didn't feel strong emotions during church. She kept her faith because her priest outright told her "you don't need to feel anything in order to believe." (As a side note, I later saw her weeping because of the ministry she had received recently. She obviously had feelings about her faith. They just didn't arise in worship like she thought they were supposed to).



I am looking forward to reading this book. It's something I think we all go through at some point. This is also something I see in the recovery community. The first 1-2 years are often filled with intense experiences. Lots of tears are shed, of joy and pain. There's also the freedom that people feel, sometimes for the first time in a decades long life. We call it the "pink cloud." There's something real and vital and wonderful about this time. But it doesn't last forever. Life settles down and becomes routine, normal. This is often a dangerous period because we think something is wrong. The "high" of early recovery is gone. Sometimes this is where people relapse, looking again for some kind of intense experience. We need to learn to not confuse serenity and boredom. We need to learn to love being normal. I remember after a little over a year in recovery I said to an old timer "It's weird. I feel OK. And, I'm actually OK with just being OK. Is that serenity?" He just chuckled at me and gave me a loving smile.



In Christ,



Jamey +

...that right kind of feeling Hello Saints,I recently listened to a in interview with author and Anglican priest The Rev. Tish Harrison Warren. She is the author of two amazing books, Liturgy of the Ordinary & Prayer in the Night. She is also a columnist for the New York Times. Both Tracey and I would highly recommend her writin...

Blog By Rev. Canon Tracey Russell, May 9, 20256

Listen, I stand at the door and knock Beloved in the Lord,Trinity Church is greatly blessed by the work of glass artist Rachel Barnyak, who designed our beautiful stained glass that hangs above the chancel. Her work was inspired by the famous painting called, The Light of the World, by William Holman Hunt. Painted in the 1850’s, this ...

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