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J. Barrie Shepherd

J. Barrie Shepherd

J. Barrie Shepherd is an award-winning poet and an honorably retired PC(USA) pastor, the author of many books.

More Stories from this Author

Seasonal decor

We bring them out again, these relics of a score of Advents Past, unwind with reverent gentleness the yellowed tissue bindings, and..

Holy Week

These weeks between the ashes and the lilies demand hardly any getting used to. The lurking guilt has ever been there, tight..

Mid (Holy) Week

Was there a Weary Wednesday led into Maundy Thursday? A day when all that went before the palm branches and plotting, all..

In the Fast Lane

Slowing down, this holy season,
may be the way to go.
Letting go, at least an hour here
and there, of that wheel

James and John

Lent 4 ¢ Introduction

One of the most fascinating and rewarding aspects of being an author is the varied nature of the responses one receives from readers. In recent years I have learned from these that my two earlier Faces... books, Faces at the Manger and Faces at the Cross, were found to be helpful, not only in private, personal devotion life, but also, on occasion, in public worship. Creative pastors, and lay people also, have adapted the musings of the various Faces as dramatic monologues, or even, in one college in Canada, into a whole Christmas Eve service. This week's meditation, in the persons of James and John, might possibly be adapted (into two voices perhaps) for such use on Transfiguration Sunday.

November Dusk

The Eve of Christ the King

 

Gray, fading, year-worn light

portends an absence of anticipation.

No consideration, even, as to whether

or not it will begin again after

the evident onset of the dark....

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