Sahara of the Heart

06/08/2026

This year, we celebrate seventy years since women were granted full clergy rights in The United Methodist tradition. In 1956, when the Methodist Church gave women full clergy rights, it was not merely an institutional change. It was an act of grace in which the church publicly recognized the calling...

06/08/2026

05/29/2026

On this day we pause, as St. Benedict bids us always, to remember - for to remember is to pray, and to pray is to hope.

We give thanks for those who laid down their lives in service to others, answering in their own way that most ancient of callings: that no greater love exists than to give one’s life for one’s friends.

May we who benefit from their sacrifice live worthy of it - in justice, in mercy and in the pursuit of true peace.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in your peace. Amen.

05/24/2026

We like faith
when it stays manageable.

Neat. Quiet. Contained.

A candle lit gently.
A prayer whispered softly.
A hymn sung the way we’ve always sung it.

But Pentecost arrives
like the windows have been flung open
without warning.

Wind rushing through frightened hearts.
Fire dancing above ordinary people.
Voices rising louder than fear.

And suddenly
disciples who’d hidden away
are in the streets
speaking about Jesus
like the story matters too much
to keep to themselves anymore.

Not scholars.
Not the powerful.
Just ordinary people
set alight by the Spirit of God.

People who’d doubted.
People who’d failed.
People who’d run away when things became costly.

Yet God chose them anyway.

Because the Spirit doesn’t wait
for polished people
with perfect words and unwavering confidence.

The Spirit comes to real people.
To anxious people.
To weary people.
To people who still carry grief in their bones
and uncertainty in their stomachs.

And through wind and fire
and trembling voices
the good news travels.

Across languages.
Across barriers.
Across the spaces
we keep trying to divide into us and them.

Because the peace of Christ
isn't something to hide away
behind locked church doors
or careful conversations.

It moves.

Through kindness shared freely.
Through courage that surprises us.
Through invitations spoken awkwardly
but honestly.
Through people willing to say
this story changed me
and I think it might change you too.

Pentecost isn't a festival of standing still.

It is wind.
It is movement.
It is hearts catching fire again.

And in the noise and wonder of it all
God is still there
breathing life
into tired people,
and sending ordinary disciples
into the world
carrying the love of Christ in their hands.

© E Hamilton 2026

05/23/2026

As we approach the Day of Pentecost, I have been thinking back to the beginning of Lent. I am struck again by how this arc of time that began with ashes will end with fire, that vivid image and symbol of the Spirit that comes to Jesus’ gathered followers. Pentecost comes to remind us, in part, that ashes do not have the final word, and that fire does not come only to consume. It comes also to bless, to call, to inspire, to give to us what we could never begin to imagine on our own. Here at the threshold of this new season, this blessing is for you, with gratefulness.

WHAT THE FIRE GIVES
A Blessing for Pentecost

You had thought that fire
only consumed,
only devoured,
only took for itself,
leaving merely ash
and memory
of something
you had believed,
if not permanent,
would be long enough,
enduring enough,
to be nearly
eternal.

So when you felt
the scorch on your lips,
the searing in your heart,
you could not
at first believe
that flame could be
so generous,
that when it came to you—
you, in your sackcloth
and sorrow—
it did not come
to consume,
to take still more
than everything.

What surprised you most
were not the syllables
that spilled from
your scalded,
astonished mouth—
though that was miracle
enough,
to have words
burn through
what had been numb,
to find your tongue
aflame with a language
you did not know
you knew—

no, what came
as greatest gift
was to be so heard
in the place
of your deepest
silence,
to be so seen
within the blazing,
to be met
with such completeness
by what the fire gives.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
janrichardson.com/books

Image: "What the Fire Gives"
© Jan Richardson
janrichardsonimages.com

05/18/2026

“Today prophets of pietism tell us to “pray for peace” and “pray that God’s will be done.” And this is certainly important. But they do not demand that we ourselves do something to ensure either. Instead, the professional pietist in us acts as if the Book of Genesis, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, had never been written. We fool ourselves into believing that we are supposed to live in this world as if we were living in the next. We create a devil’s den of complacency and call it the spiritual life. We make quietism the ideal of the age.”

05/14/2026

Today is Ascension Day, when the Church celebrates the risen Christ returning to the Father.

In the Gospel, Jesus blesses his disciples and is taken from their sight. This is not an ending, but a new beginning. Christ’s ascension affirms his authority and points to his continuing presence, as the disciples are sent out with joy to bear witness to what they have seen.

Ascension Day reminds us that Christ reigns with God and calls us to live as his witnesses in the world.

Scripture reading: Luke 24:50–51, 52–53

‘Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.’

Prayer

Risen and ascended Lord,
you reign in glory and fill all things with your presence.
Lift our hearts to where you are,
and strengthen us to bear witness to your love.
Send us out in joy and faith,
to serve you in the world you came to save.

Amen.