Mary Rocap

People of color live in recognizable geographic areas because of decades of redlining and restricting where they might live. So it feels particularly calculated that restricting their vote by slicing and dicing it to be counted among other neighborhoods and…

Lyrics to a Song I Wrote the following day:

There's a dusting of icy snow

There’s a hawk watching from a tree

There’s a dead man lying in a street up North

And anger rising in the land of the…

When six Justices of the Supreme Court tell you that the federal government does not have the authority to guarantee your right to end an unwanted pregnancy, but that the state in which you live now does, I am dismayed…

Last Sunday, the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 20, 2025, the appointed Psalm was Psalm 15. No matter what people say, character matters, especially in our leaders. It mattered way back when and it matters now. This psalm asks a…

I read this passage as the Lector in church on the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany. The passage stirred my heart, and a new song was the result. I am including the reading as well as the lyrics to the…

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

On this day of celebration and tradition, every family has their own pageantry.

In our household, the go-tos are: decorated twinkle trees twinkling,…

click HERE for my introduction and Sydney's talk.

In the spring of 1970, I was a freshman sitting in a history class on Duke’s East Campus. Dr. Sydney Nathans was my professor. I sat in his class hoping to draw…

Click HERE for the link the sermon.

In the Name of God, 

The Body of Christ: The Bread of Heaven / The Blood of Christ: The Cup of Salvation.

This day, the 11^th of August, until 13 years ago…

(Click HERE for video (poor image/good sound)

We remember his death. We proclaim his resurrection. We await his coming in glory.

It was only 21 days since their Lord had ridden into Jerusalem with crowds lining the road, shouting and…

I recently re-read Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and came across this passage written from the perspective of the fiddler, Stobrod.

“One thing he discovered with a great deal of astonishment was that music held for him more than just…