Rachael Barham – St. Croix Church

beautiful sunset with grass in forefront

A Broken Open Heart

Author: Teena Brown • July 20, 2025

In relaxed “summer sharing mode,” Rachael brings a random collection of things: a book she loves, news about her upcoming move, a poem, and wisdom from two beautiful humans who passed away this week – poet Andrea Gibson (d. 14th July) and environmental activist Joanna Macy (d. 19th). A thread weaving through them all is the call to let the co-existing beauty and pain of life and the state of our world keep on breaking us open to more love and interconnectedness, daring to trust that this is in itself a big part of the solution we need.

Widening Circles

Author: Teena Brown • April 6, 2025

Rachael explores the idea that maturing faith is movement towards “more love and union – in ever widening circles” (Richard Rohr), asking what wisdom this vision could offer us for these days, how we see it expressed in Jesus, and what sandboxes, planks and annoying people can teach us!

Seeking Ancient Wisdom for These Days

Author: Teena Brown • February 23, 2025

Rachael brings back her (made-up!) translations of the Bible – the Trigger Fest Version (TFV) and the Transformational Wisdom Version (TWV) – to name toxic interpretations of Psalm 37 and then, as a community, to seek within it ancient wisdom to help us to live wisely and lovingly in these troubling days.

Love in the Wilderness

Author: Teena Brown • January 19, 2025

As we start to move into our new teaching theme of “The Path of Love: A Way in the Wilderness,” Rachael reviews what inspired it and brings forward Walter’s contributions about the vulnerability of love from before the theme even began! Then she explores the idea that our human experience of the path of love is always a way in the wilderness, and that the conditions that make love hard and vulnerable are exactly what cause its most beautiful expressions to emerge.

What kind of king? (And so what?)

Author: Teena Brown • November 24, 2024

On Christ the King Sunday, Rachael and the gathered community wrestle together with the implications of the image of God as King, how Jesus’ life and death invite us to question and reimagine it, and what all of this means for the way we approach our own life and use of power.

a young boy helps a young girl not to be afraid of pigeons

Small Kindnesses Are No Small Thing

Author: Walter Thiessen • September 29, 2024

Rachael grapples with how to respond to hard things in the Bible and in life, and shares some learnings from her recent trip to Ireland.

Something to live in(to)

Author: Teena Brown • May 26, 2024

On Trinity Sunday, Rachael explores (with the help of contributions from her parents!) the mystery of the Three-in-One as less of a doctrine and more of a relational, experiential reality to live in, and live into.

Life out of Death

Author: Teena Brown • March 31, 2024

Our Easter Sunday service wove together music, liturgy, lectionary readings, personal “life out of death” stories from three beloved members of our community – Bill, Lorna, and Moriah – and a homily from Rachael. The recording begins with the three “witnesses” and is followed by Rachael’s invitation to sit with the improbability of the resurrection of Jesus, allowing it to be less of a provable certainty and more of a miraculous mystery – that calls to us and shapes our own lived experience of loss and renewal.

What’s Not To Love?

Author: Teena Brown • January 21, 2024

Rachael dives into our new theme, “Being Rooted in Love Together,” with some thoughts on our barriers to love and how to approach them, a guided reflection with Psalm 139, and an invitation to adopt the phrase, “What’s not to love?” as a love-barrier-melting tool!

The Pain & Promise of Being Human (Together)

Author: Teena Brown • November 5, 2023

Rachael shares about the challenge of just being herself, the vulnerability of being honestly, messily human with each other, and how the truth that “we are members of one another” invites us to new ways of being together for the sake of our broken world.