Gratitude, an antidote to consumerism
If we could design a holiday that would double as the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season, I think it should be a holiday focused on gratitude. Practicing gratitude for the gift of being alive, for there being something rather than nothing, for wakefulness and breathing, for warm fires and…
Expecting Emmanuel
Advent came a bit early this year. This past Sunday Mark and I shared the sermon to preview our Advent theme and give some commentary on the foundational text for the season – The Gospel of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. It includes five women, each with outsider status. This coming…
Patience plus pizza and tunes at the polls
Yesterday our church building again served as a polling location and was full of our Clintonville neighbors. Really full. When I arrived in the morning the voting area in the fellowship hall was overflowing into a line that came down the stairs into the foyer and curved back to the…
Midweek Blog: True Belonging
A couple months ago I wrote about how I had only recently jumped on the Brené Brown bandwagon, and I just now finished a second book by her, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. I chose this second work by Brown because…
Ritualizing transitions
What do a hornet’s nest, a self-portrait, a banjo, a philosophy book, and a narwhal stuffy have in common? These were some of the many items that showed up at the church last evening for the closing mini-retreat of the Transitions and Ritual group. Each participant was asked to bring…
