On Thursday morning I walk across the Green to meet my friend Peter for coffee at Cilantro, the one coffee shop that opens at 7. I follow the sidewalk down the center and then take the spoke that gets me to the crosswalk and then to coffee and friendship. Peter and I have been meeting…
I spent about an hour this afternoon talking to a couple who have been church members for a long time. For health reasons, they have not been able to attend church, but watch on our YouTube feed. They are both in their eighties and have been married over sixty years. I mostly asked questions and…
unending pie “good thing love is an unending pie” were the closing words from a friend after seeing pictures of our new pup Loretta running through the snow grief has swirled through the season like an unending blizzard squalls of sorrow drifts of absence melt into tears that pool and freeze Lizzy! still sniffs where…
Because I am at a point in my life where I hold the record for the amount of Milton on the planet, and because I had my third cardioversion in November to correct my atrial fibrillation once again, and because I felt like I was beginning to petrify, I started going back to the gym…
My sermon this week grew out of my conversation with Matthew 4:1-11, which is the account of Jesus’ temptations while he was in the desert for forty days. The story is about more than giving up for Lent. _________________________ The temptations. What comes to mind when you hear those words? I hear music: “Papa Was…
We drove up to Hartford for the Connecticut Flower Show today and were caught by surprise by light snowfall–enough to cover the ground and remind us of how little snow we have seen this winter, and send me to writing. unseasoned it will not make sense to most for me to say I have missed…
One of my jobs along the way was as a Creative in the Apple Store, which meant I helped people learn how to use their various devices. We often talked about those who didn’t know what they didn’t know, which was another way of saying the thing that brought a person in wasn’t necessarily the…
The origin story for Lent, one might say, is Jesus’ venture into the wilderness for forty days. That image rolls off our tongues and out of our sermons as though we know what happened is described by only eleven verses in Matthew’s gospel and thirteen in Luke’s. The conversation between Jesus and the tempter can…
Recent church tradition names this Sunday—the last Sunday of Epiphany before Lent begins—as Transfiguration Sunday, which means the Gospel reading for the day in most mainline churches is the story of Jesus transformation in front of Peter, James, and John, which we just read together. The story shows up In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, each…
I waited until this morning to post my sermon in hopes that it would not get quite as buried under the Super Bowl hype. The text is 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, a passage that offers a less-than-flattering look at the people in the Corinthian church, but also offers a connection with them because they acted in…