February 26, 2025
Bill Harkins
In February the Episcopal Church has traditionally celebrated the lives of two people dear to me, and to many. Eric Henry Liddell (16 January 1902 – 21 February 1945, was a Scottish athlete, rugby union international and missionary. Liddell was the winner of the Men’s 400 meters at the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris. He was portrayed in the wonderful film Chariots of Fire. Born in China, Liddell returned there as a Protestant missionary in later life.
Often called the “Flying Scotsman”, Liddell was born in Tianjin (formerly transliterated as Tientsin) in North China, second son of the Rev & Mrs James Dunlop Liddell who were Scottish missionaries with the London Missionary Society. He became well known for being the fastest runner in Scotland while at Eltham College. He withdrew from the 100-meter race in the 1924 Olympics in Paris as he refused to run on a Sunday. Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 meters, an event in which he had previously excelled. Even so, his success in the 400m was largely unexpected. He not only won the race but broke the existing world record with a time of 47.6 seconds. To put this in perspective, my best 400m time was 48.2 at the D-III championships my senior year in college, some 50 years later!
Liddell returned to Northern China where he served as a missionary, like his parents, from 1925 to 1943 –
February 19, 2025
Bill Harkins
In one of my favorites of his songs, Van Morrison sings:
I’m a dweller on the threshold
And I’m waiting at the door
And I’m standing in the darkness
I don’t want to wait no more
I’m a dweller on the threshold
And I cross some burning ground
And I’ll go down to the water
Let the great illusion drown
This song speaks to those liminal spaces we find on the journey and the invitation to explore them implicit in Morrison’s “I don’t want to wait no more.” The etymology of “threshold” is from the Latin, “Limen.” It describes states, times, spaces, etc., that exist at a point of transition or change—a metaphorical threshold—as in “the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness.”
When we walk through that doorway, as Morrison’s song suggests, something addresses us, prompts us, calls us, pushes us, pulls us into a relationship with itself. Transitional, liminal space is where we experience life in a lively way that feels real to us and where we discover and create ourselves as fully alive. I would suggest that this includes those aspects of our lives that are dissonant and where we are in conflict. It is from and within this space that we encounter each other, in our common finitude,
February 12, 2025
Bill Harkins
The Reverend Absalom Jones, 1746-1818
This famous image of Jones was rendered by Philadelphia artist Raphaelle Peale in 1810.
In our “Walk in Love” adult education class, we are learning about how Episcopal beliefs and practices shape our actions. We’ve learned the phrase Lex orandi, lex credenda, from the Latin, meaning “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” This describes the idea that habits of prayer shape Christian belief. It’s a reminder that prayer and belief are integral to each other, and that liturgy is not distinct from theology. In other words, our beliefs and actions are informed by our spiritual disciplines. This belief is shared by most faith traditions in one way or another and has to do with “meaning making” and spirituality as we live out our day to day lives. When I was a sophomore at Sandy Springs High School, I was unexpectedly promoted to the varsity football team due to the injury of a senior whose position I shared in our Power-I option offense. Truth be told, I was scared, and unprepared. When the team manager asked me to pick a number for my jersey, I chose #21 because Roberto Clemente was among my athletic heroes. While known primarily for his years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Clemente’s first love was track and field, and he was an Olympic hopeful in his youth before deciding to turn his full attention to baseball.
February 5, 2025
Among my favorite passages from the Hebrew Bible is Joshua 3: 1-5. The NRSV version reads like this:
3 Early in the morning Joshua rose and set out from Shittim with all the Israelites, and they came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing over. 2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it, 4 so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before. Then Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
In this reading from Joshua, we find people in transition and a leader, in Moses, also in transition or, perhaps in a process of transformation. In our liturgical year we are moving through Epiphany toward Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday on March 5th. We are also in a transitional season after a polarizing and difficult election season. Many are anxious and at times, the truth seems elusive. And of course, we are in transition as we seek our next rector in this season of profound changes in the Episcopal Church and in mainline Protestantism, hence, our “Lay led, clergy supported” mantra. In our “Walk in Love” class at Holy Family (40+ souls last Sunday…thank you!) we are making our way through disciplines and practices found in the Book of Common Prayer.