Tuning My Heart (PDF)

Even in a society as highly mobile as our own has become, change is unsettling, discomfiting. Like our ancestors in faith, we are more often than not on the journey, in the wilderness, seeking to know who we are as a people, and trying to comprehend the God who, we hope, is going up with us--wherever it is we end up going. The paths are not as familiar as they once were, and recognizable signposts are rare. It's easy to feel lost. The congregation I have now served in Miami, Florida, for nearly twenty years has, while remaining constant in size, changed faces, accents, and styles at a dizzying pace. People don't stay put anymore, and the folk who find their way to church these days are hungry for a home, longing for community, and hoping the God of their long-vanished, Sunday-school childhoods can find the way to their latest change of address. For this pastor and her congregation, the rooting of our common life and shared faith story in the fertile soil and the organic rhythms of the liturgical year has provided a permanent address that feels like home. Tuning My Heart is a collection of articles, sermons, and poetry based upon the movements of the liturgical calendar and shaped by one tropical congregation's life cycle as it seeks to bloom in the old, rich soil of the Christian tradition, and to flower in the exotically scented air of the vibrant, diverse city that is home.