Earlier this week I was included on a group email from CMCer Matthew Leahy. His young son is currently undergoing chemo...
On Sunday, rather than lighting the peace candle, worship leader Becca Lachman invited us to place our hand over our heart and imagine the peace candle as a light within us. It’s a prayerful gesture one can access any time. Later in the service there were many candles burning as we came forward and named dear ones who have died, each flame a life whose love lives on in us. I can still picture those candles, and still hear the affection in the voices speaking those names.
In looking at the worship calendar for November, it’s a month of small gestures pregnant with meaning...
I have been asked to be the featured speaker at the upcoming Jr. High Winter Retreat at Camp Friedenswald in January. For my topic, I decided to go with: “What do we do with the Bible?”
I chose this topic partially because the High School Sunday School class is already doing a related curriculum, but also because it is a question that I still wrestle with on a regular basis. My sense is that I’m not alone. So often those of us who have moved away from more fundamentalist or literal readings of scripture find ourselves lacking a clear sense of direction when it comes to how we...
What do Facebook and Twitter have in common with the Protestant Reformation? Nothing and everything.
Six days from now, October 31, is the 500 year anniversary of the German monk and professor Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church. It was a list of grievances against the Catholic Church, of which Luther and just about all of Europe was a part. Luther was especially critical of the sale of indulgences. These had devolved into a fundraising mechanism as the church leveraged people’s fear of eternal punishment to solicit money donations,...
In the past few days I’ve had multiple conversations about Ohio in October. In short, it’s a beautiful time of year. It’s special.
It’s the trees that do it to us. I’m fearing the downward line of societal disintegration, and they’re still there, pointing to circularity. They’ve gathered their energy, stored their supplies for the journey through winter, and are letting go. Their colorful solar panels disintegrate and become earth and soil beneath them. What has the outward appearance of death is how they live.
I do grieve the leaves falling every autumn. I’m...