prayers of my heart, a collection of articles and writings by C. Alicia Randolph

Like so many people, when I was in grade school, I had to memorize and perform poetry.  And like so many students along the way, in the fifth grade, I memorized and performed the words of Robert Frost, from probably his best-known poem, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.   Whose woods these are I think … Continue reading The Heart of the Wilderness: Third in a series for Season of Creation 2020

In the 1995 wildly popular Disney animated movie, loosely based on the life of Pocahontas, there is a song about rivers.  This was a favorite movie of my two older kids, Ethan and Grace and it was a favorite Disney movie of my father as well, who one afternoon took us all to see it.  My father … Continue reading Healing River Waters: Season of Creation 2020

Sometimes, I think that we can just feel it—our connection to the land, the way that God created humans to feel connected to, amazed by, and grateful for this gift of the soil—the neighborhood of the land.  If we are really paying attention, I think that there is something in the very life of the land … Continue reading Earth Home: Season of Creation 2020

In so many ways, these days, I recognize that I am an environmentalist.  Actually, a theo-environmentalist might be a better way to describe who I am and who I am becoming more of in this time in my life—a theologian/environmentalist, deeply concerned about care of creation and about helping others to pay attention to the myriad … Continue reading Season of Creation: Forest Talk

Last week I encountered a feeling that I never, ever imagined that I could feel, and the encounter left me feeling shaken and uncertain in a time of uncertainty.  I felt doom.  Doom.  As Dictionary.com defines, I felt “unavoidable ill fortune” and for a moment or two or a hundred, I did not see any way or anything … Continue reading From Doom…to Hope

A Sermon for June 14, 2020 First United Methodist, Parkersburg, WV Genesis 18:1-15 I remember very little about my maternal grandmother, Ruby Mae Arthurs Oliphant.  When I was quite young, she suffered several strokes and spent the last five years of her life bedridden, unable to talk or communicate.  My mother said that really, she had not … Continue reading Extravagant Hospitality

Yesterday, the news reports of the lynching of George Floyd filled my newsfeed and my head and heart. I longed for words to cry out, to demand justice, to scream STOP! NO MORE! I wanted words to proclaim that we cannot continue to allow this brutality to happen to our Black brothers and sisters. No … Continue reading I Walked A Labyrinth

Today is Monday.  During these pandemic days, when my schedule has been turned upside down, thrown up in the air, and often landed in unpredictable ways, Monday has become a catch-up day for me.  Today started off bright and beautiful, with sun shining and busy birds singing and calling back and forth across the trees … Continue reading A Tired, Old Locust and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker

During these pandemic days, I have been pondering a question:  What does it mean for me to be a witness for my faith?  The question emerged as I was thinking about the first martyr Stephen and his witness and I was thinking about it in the midst of a pandemic week that was filled with … Continue reading Pondering a Question:  What does it mean to be a witness?