Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 11

Results and Faith

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

You’ve seen the disclaimer when you look at a company’s quarterly results or your retirement portfolio:

“Past performance is not an indicator of future results.”

You know what that means—those outstanding results from the previous quarter or year may never occur again. Buyer, beware.

But unlike many of us and our investment strategies, God’s an optimist. Time and t...

Lord, I Lift Your Name on High

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

I started writing devotions/reflections with no formal training. In fact, I’ve never had a religion, theology, or even philosophy course. I will modestly say I seem to have gotten fairly good at devotions writing, but you’d expect that after having done thousands of them. It all started with Your Daily Tripod and my friend Tony, who took a chance on me.

This past w...

Standing Firm

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

If you do not stand firm in faith,

you shall not stand at all. (Isaiah 7:9, NRSVCE)

“Don’t worry! God’s got this covered!” a dear friend of mine often says. What’s more, I can tell she means it.

How do we get it, though, that firmness, in a time when it’s difficult to live our faith in community as we thought of community even six months ago? How do we get it, thou...

Idols of Our Own Destruction

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

With their silver and gold they made idols

for their own destruction. (Hosea 8:4, NRSVCE)

This reflection is not about whether Confederate statues or Mount Rushmore or anything else tangible should come down.

No, it’s about the somewhat less obvious idols we make for ourselves, the idols that start out

Hosea Commentary Scroll

innocently and would stay innocent if w...

July 2020 On the Nightstand: Hope Upon Impact

I ran across a review of Hope Upon Impact at Franciscan Mom, and knew it needed to be on my nightstand. The author’s twelve-year-old daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury. What happens afterward, it seems is a beautiful saga of community, hope and faith.

And in case you’re wondering–I did finally make it all the way through Seven-Story Mountain by Thomas Merton. I’ll be honest; at times, I found the story a bit tedious. But once Thomas arrived at Gethsemani Abbey to become a Trappist monk,...

Friends in Faith: Eileen McGervey

Nearly ten years ago, Eileen McGervey left behind the security of a day job and opened One More Page Books and More a few miles from where I live. Eileen and I were parishioners at the same church at that time, and I knew her by her smiling face before I knew her name.

In an era where indie bookstores seem to be closing every month, Eileen has managed to keep afloat–and live her faith in her business. She is a servant and shepherd, doing home deliveries for folks in our area and keeping people’s...

Calm Faith

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. (Matthew 8:26, NRSVCE)

Dear Jesus:

Seriously? You had to ask them why they were terrified? Many of the disciples were experienced fishers of fish. That just shows me that the storm must have been really, really violent if it s...

Roads Broad and Constricted

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

A 2017 study found that the more entitled people are, the less likely they are to follow instructions. The reason, according to the Cornell University and Harvard Medical School, authors, appeared to be that people with a higher sense of entitlement don’t follow rules they think are unfair.

And let’s be honest. A whole lot of what Jesus preached didn’t sound fair t...

Stop Before the “But”

Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?7 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47, NRSVCE)

Don’t expect a pat on the back or a big “atta-girl” or “atta-boy” from the Lord because you sacrifice for a b...

Mass for Three–Make That Four

Being a woman of a certain age–and asthmatic–in a location still fighting covid, I haven’t been to an in-person Mass since the first weekend in March. And while I’ve heard some wonderful homilies in Mass livestreamed from as far away as Malaysia, for Catholics, there’s nothing like the Eucharist.

So you can imagine my delight when I showed up for a weekend at a retreat center about 75 miles from home on Friday afternoon, and learned that a priest was on retreat as well, and would be offering Ma...