On Ash Wednesday the Church once again summoned us to a 40-day season of self-examination and repentance.  We were asked a two-fold question-- to look closely at who we really are - when our hearts are open, and all desires are known to God.  We were also challenged to change, to turn aside from those things that keep us from our truest selves, where we're most intimately connected with one another, and with God. Lent admonishes us to pay attention, to be honest, and to do something redemptive about what we see.

For the fifth time I have the honor to stand before you as your priest and rector to offer an annual reporting of the state of the communion that binds us together as a parish.

In our Anglican tradition, the highest form of the practice of ordained ministry has long been that of parish priest, tasked with care of Christ's flock. In the ministry of the Word, it's a parish priest's calling to make certain that the voice of the Good Shepherd is both heard and recognized. In the ministry of Sacrament, it's a parish priest who's charged with presiding over the very presence of God in ordinary bread and wine, offered for ordinary people in ordinary time.

How are we transformed? How do we display that transformation to others? We are at the end of the Epiphany Season in the church calendar today and we are provided with a mysterious transformation: Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain. So much of this Epiphany Season is about transformations and change. All of these accounts we have heard these past few weeks about healings and casting out of demons and curing the sick, they all concern some form of change, some kind of transformation happening. And they all involve mystery..... There is mystery in most transformations.

My childhood next-door neighbor was named April. She never had mud on her face or skinned her knees-she was the icon opposite the tomboy imperfections of the rest of us. April was not only the goody-two-shoes who smugly reveled in the downfalls of the rest of us neighborhood-sinners...she also managed to be the first in line for everything at school, as well as the first to shun the new fat kid who moved into the neighborhood. She was like the dark side of a cosmic Martha Stewart, making sure we all knew that the standards that really mattered in life were hers, and that virtually none of us would measure up.