Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

  • I’m tired of the blame. The health and vitality of the The Episcopal Church and the Mainline generally is an oversimplified story of the 20th Century, too easily shouldered on the leadership of the 21st. It’s always the politics or the practice or the beliefs or the Bible or the liturgy or anything else ad nauseam, but…

  • Our Part in the Feeding of the Multitudes The challenge of the story as we receive it is that we think its all about Jesus and His magic hands. The Eucharistic metaphor gets us thinking that for sure. But the story isn’t about reversing scarcity, but finding abundance in deserted places. a Homily for Proper 13 A Text: Matthew 14:13-21…

  • Jesus’s parables are dependent on seeing and understanding Proper 12A  |  Matthew 13:31-33,44-52 The Hiding At the beginning of this chapter, we’re told Jesus is so swarmed by people that He jumps into a boat to teach the crowds surrounding Him on the shore. There so many people He has to put a barrier up; to…

  • Last week I was interviewed by a good friend of mine, Sean Maloney for his podcast, Padre’s Pods! We talked about the cult of independence in response to Joy Bennett’s piece “Independence: The False Gospel Destroying American Christianity,” critiquing the culture’s demand for independence, I shared my love for Special K through a personal story, and…

  • The second hardest life lesson I’ve had to confront is asking for help. The hardest one has been actually accepting the help. (Note: I haven’t mastered either one yet.) I’ve always been a capable person with the full calendar and resume to prove it. But ever since our oldest daughter was born with life-threatening complications,…

  • I love talking with my Dad about church. He’s a priest. I’m a priest. Both of us are very traditional in many ways; very untraditional in many ways. And the best part is that they don’t always match. I greatly appreciate the way we talk, argue, explore, wrestle with our mutual vocations. Our talk last night…