“And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”(Luke 3:22)Yesterday, we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, putting a punctuation mark at the end of the Christmas season. My favorite daily app, “Pray-As-You-Go” offered some good food for thought based on the full reading from Luke (Luke 3:15-16, 21-22). They suggest calling to mind our own baptism and imaging God saying to us what was said to Jesus, “You are my beloved; with you I…
I am thinking about my Grandma today. And I am thinking about Communion. I miss Communion in our churches, all of us coming together at the Lord’s Table for the Holy Supper with our hands and hearts open to receive. I miss the regular connecting with Jesus, in/with the bread and the wine, and feeling the presence of all the saints also with us in the meal as I rub shoulders with others next to me. I miss kneeling and expressing my heart’s…
I have cherished memories of Christmas from my childhood. I remember the anticipation I felt when the Advent wreath was added to the church chancel, how I watched intently each week as another candle was lit. I especially looked forward to the lighting of the pink candle, the joy candle, which meant Christmas was almost upon us. My parents were of German heritage, so it was our custom to open presents on Christmas Eve, following a candlelight worship service at our country church…
In the past week my heart and my prayers have been all over the map. I've experienced gratitude and wonder, fear and anxiety, relief. But never true peace. Peace eludes me. I have spoken to friends and acquaintances who tell me the same thing. That peace feels out of reach. Our contentious election is over, but in its wake comes the unspoken question, "Now what?" How do we begin to come together as a nation? How do we work together to stop the spread…
"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:12-13). One could make a pretty good argument right now that hope is the greatest, but I know that love has been the strongest guidepost and will remain so for me…
Sometimes, when you’re isolated or fearful, it’s hard to feel connected to anything. During these times of COVID-19, many of us feel that way. We’re cut off from familiar places and people. To the extent that we derive comfort from church-based faith, we’re also cut off from the buildings and communities in which we usually experience it. This can easily lead to a feeling of being cut off from God. Churches have not always prepared us to cope with these feelings. Often they…
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