Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

Sunday, November 22, marked the end of the church year. It's called Christ the King Sunday according to the church calendar. The pastor our family watched online that Sunday quipped that anything that meant an ending to this year sounded good to her. I agreed with a hearty laugh from my comfortable seat at home. Our presence at home was an indicator of what we'd like to have come to an end--a year of separation, online events, and extra-precaution for in-person gatherings.   We were online that morning, and weren't able to connect to our own church's streaming service at the moment, yet another indicator of things-not-right. And so began the last week of the church year. Thanksgiving, perched almost at the end, a confluence of church and civic calendars, usually offers a chance to gather around a big table. In my family, that means lots of stories and reminiscences. I wonder what we'll say in years to come about this Thanksgiving. We attempted to eat together--yet ...

The Windhover,  a publication of Mary Hardin-Baylor, has recently published an essay of mine entitled "Sometimes in Church." You can order a copy of The Windhover here and also see excerpts from the issue,  including my essay, in Volume 24.2. I wrote this essay before COVID-19 kept us from regularly meeting together in church, and rereading it has brought me back to a former time--before extra spaces between seats, before masks, before church-on-the-living room couch. I miss singing in church and singing with fervor. Not just any song, although I do love singing Les Miserables and LaLa Land songs while Elisabeth plays them on the piano, and you'd be surprised at how many Stevenses can start belting songs from Frozen 2  all together.  I miss congregational singing. Yes, we sing along with the online church service, and that is very good. But it is not the same. I look forward, and with hope, to the time when we can all join in congregational singing again, witho...

A meditation for Thursday of Holy Week. I wrote this as a part of our church's weekly encouragement during the time that we are apart. This is Holy Week. On Sunday we watched Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, welcomed like a king, a much anticipated hero. As the week continued we saw him healing many, making parables from fig trees, and clearing the temple of those who sought a profit there. Embarrassed followers and skeptics watched as a woman dropped in on a dinner party and poured oil over Jesus's head, "preparing me for my burial," he explained, perhaps bringing up more questions to the bewildered and disgusted guests.  The plot against Jesus had been coalescing day by day, and so we find ourselves at Thursday--often called Loving Thursday when Jesus, "having loved his own who were in the world, now showed them the full extent of his love." (John 13:1) There's one disciple that we can zoom in on, and in fact his antics and qu...