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Midweek Blog: Coming of Age

It has been a few years, but it is finally time to start thinking again about our Coming of Age Celebration. Barring any unforeseen circumstances with the pandemic, we will be holding this service on February 27th. The plan is to be back in the sanctuary, while also still streaming via Zoom for those unable to make it in person.

For those of you who are newer (or those who have forgotten since it’s been a few years), this is an opportunity for our current sixth graders to bless the congregation by planning and leading a Sunday morning worship service. These young people have...

Gratitude for Thich Nhat Hanh

In 2002 I was newly married, doing Mennonite Voluntary Service in St. Louis with Abbie, and in the middle stages of theological deconstruction. The collection of beliefs that had guided my youth and early young adulthood no longer made sense. There was no clear indication much of anything made sense.

It was during this time I discovered, read, and re-read a little book by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh called Living Buddha, Living Christ.

I hadn’t encountered anything quite like it before – a Buddhist retelling his experience of coming to claim Jesus as a...

Altruistic coping

A recent essay in The Atlantic by Stanford professor of psychology Jamil Zaki highlights my growing unease with the cultural direction self-care has taken. It’s titled “’Self-care’ Isn’t the Fix for Late-Pandemic Malaise.”

Zaki upholds the importance of self-care which he defines as “anything pursued for the sake of one’s own wellness.” Self-care is vital, but limited in its efficacy. It is “especially good at softening intense stress and anxiety,” but, as it has come to be practiced and...

Midweek Blog: Creativity and Spiritual Formation

The Leadership Team recently approved my sabbatical proposal for this coming summer, so I thought I would use this month’s blog to let the congregation know a little more about what my plans and hopes are for this time away from normal duties. The guiding question that I have decided to spend my sabbatical focusing on is:

How can nurturing lives of creative expression support opportunities for deepening spiritual formation?

This question has emerged from a number of different threads in my life, but at the heart of it is my interest in exploring how acts of...

A Christmas prayer

For each of the four births Abbie and I experienced together, including our stillborn daughter Belle, everything else faded into the background for a precious and brief time. During those hours and days, it was unquestionably clear what mattered most. We had a vital role to play, but we were mostly witnesses to wonder.

It’s been a hard year. It sounds like we are headed toward a difficult start to the next year.

My prayer is that we can all have some precious time this Christmas to be witnesses to wonder and to dwell in the clarity of what matters most. That might happen...

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