Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

mission

  • I fight the grass, forcing its way up through cracks in the sidewalk and driveway like an OCD sentry, defending the palace from natural invasion – grass our persistent interloper. My right thumb, the out side of the pointer, just below the tip, begin to ache, like I’ve been writing with a flat pencil. The outer…

  • Seeing, Hearing, Feeling and Testifying in Truth Pentecost  |  John 15:26-27 & 16:4b-15   When the advocate comes After Jesus comes back from the dead and appears to Mary, appears to his disciples, then appears to them again, now with Thomas in their midst, he says to them that iconic phrase: “Blessed are those who…

  • As the candles are snuffed from our Easter liturgy and the only reminders of our celebration are the mountain of candy wrappers and plastic strips approximating grass, we go back to our lives as a return to normal, as if nothing is different. And the irony is lost on us all. We go about our…

  • Banishing the fear that shrouds the light of Christ Lent 4B  |  John 3:14-21 In the Dark of Night When we pulled up to the bus stop this week in the inky-blue of morning, we found ourselves at the back of the line. A small handful of 3rd or 4th graders rule the stop and…

  • You have a preference. Everyone does. You want your pastor or priest to look a certain way. You know other people have a preference, too. Their preference may match yours. It may not. You know the pastor or priest has her preference. Hopefully you care what that is. The question is not so much whether…

  • Make straight the way for the Lord.   Beginning with fireflies, whose light dances and shifts in the childhood remembrance of night, we are reminded again of the ongoing truth of light in darkness. Of the presence of Jesus and piercing of the oppressive veil darkness holds on us. In the midst of the dark night, not…