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“A work of art offers a paradoxical liberation: it is something that changes everything while being perfectly useless in any ordinary sense...Art’s role in the contemporary world may well be precisely to be un-useful, to reveal the importance of uselessness in our lives.  You can’t eat a painting.  You can’t do anything except stand before it, know the world differently, and walk away changed.  That’s what a painting can do, what a poem can do.  Art halts the mind’s unthinking plummet and lets you see the...

August is the time of year to prepare for harvesting—fruits from the trees and grains from the fields.  It's also a time of reflection and projection for me.  As I consider the recent request from the Leadership Team for a First Fruits Giving commitment for 2021, I appreciate the role that CMC plays in my life and the hope I have for our congregation in the coming years. 

My personal involvement in church programs focuses on maintenance projects, occasional singing in ensembles, cutting squares for the Piecemakers, and organizing the school kits...

For good, or for ill, money has power, and it speaks for us.  For this reason, we offer our financial giving intentionally.  Just as in a growing season, from planting to harvest, we plan our giving upfront, so that it speaks to what we value, believe, and support.  So where we give, you can hear our voices.

In 1981 we graduated from Goshen College.  Since that time we have been annual contributors to express our gratitude and show that we value that place.  As students we always heard about the “constituents” and the power they had.  They...

The kitchen floor was nearly covered.  I had just put all the groceries away and there they were, plastic bags puffed in a pile like cumulus clouds.  I scooped them up and tried to stuff them in the cupboard where the rest of the bags were stuffed.  The door didn’t want to close.

I keep reusable bags folded in the car and rolled up like sleeping bags in my purse.  It has always seemed like a fairly easy way to reduce the use of plastic.  But, they can’t be brought into stores and used right now because of the pandemic.  It only takes a few of...

One of my favorite Ohio-based organizations is the Arc of Appalachia.  My introduction to the Arc came during a 2010 tree education course that rocked my world, bringing the forest to life in a way I’d never experienced.  To borrow from this upcoming Sunday’s passage about Moses and the burning bush, it was the first time I glimpsed the plant world aflame with God.   

This is how the Arc describes its workWe acquire and steward wildlands in the Ohio region.  We create sanctuaries where people can connect with the...

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