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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 Sunday will be our annual Gratitude Sunday before Thanksgiving, then we’ll step into the official beginning of Advent the following Sunday, November 27.

This Advent we’re drawing from a new book by Mennonite pastor Joanna Harader (Peace Mennonite Church, Lawrence, Kansas), Expecting Emmanuel:...

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 doors of the sanctuary. That’s the shortest the line was all day. Staff and poll workers couldn’t remember it ever being busier. When I left at 5:00, the line was out the door, curving into the parking lot, extending all the way to the rain barrel by the alley, about a two-hour wait.

At home I...

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 the title intrigued me, especially the idea of “true belonging.” More and more, I am sensing, hearing stories about, and personally experiencing that we are becoming increasingly isolated, lonely, and disconnected from one another. And even though we sometimes make jokes about how the time of the pandemic has made us lose all...

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 several symbolic objects that represent the stage/era/phase of life that is ending/fading/receding and the stage/era/phase of life that is beginning/emerging/taking shape. Each of the eight participants had time to describe why they brought their particular objects and how they relate to grief and...

Beauty Saves?

The headlines aren’t getting any prettier, but here in the remnants of the temperate deciduous forest you can’t take a step these days without encountering beauty. The fiery sugar maple in our backyard has let go of enough leaves to blanket the ground beneath it, still holding on to enough to fill itself with color. The yellowing pawpaw leaves on the bike trail by the river are bowing lower, a humbled posture, soon to let go, but not just yet. The serviceberry in front of the church is keeping watch over the rain garden as they both undergo transition.

In Dostoyevsky’s novel...

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