I’m preaching tomorrow at North Madison Congregational Church UCC, a wonderful congregation in the next town over from Guilford. In light of all that has gone on in the past couple of weeks, and also in light of Ginger’s trip to El Paso, I am using Isaiah 58:9-12 rather than the lectionary passage for the…
The first Toni Morrison book I ever read was her first book, The Bluest Eye, which tells the story of Pecola, a young African-American girl growing up in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940s. Because of her mannerisms and her dark skin, she is considered “ugly.” She has a doll that is white. Pecola wishes she…
When we were in Provincetown last weekend to see Julie, our former foster daughter, cross the finish line for the Pan Mass Challenge, I saw a t-shirt in a window that said, “I am silently correcting your grammar.” I almost bought it. The fact that language changes is both exciting and dreadful for someone who…
Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” The quote has come to mind this week in an unexpected way because I have watched the way comparison is used to deflect or derail a discussion. One says, “We need to close the detention camps,” and another replies, “Obama built them.” One says, “We need…
I feel stuck today. I have work to do, manuscripts to edit filled with words by authors who have done their best to make meaning out of faith and life in these days, and I feel like I am treading molasses, doing all I can to keep from drowning. Toni Morrison died yesterday. She did…
tell the others on a hillside of tombs only one stone was moved life surrounded by death which is how it feels this morning with news of “coordinated bombings” (should that be a phrase) christ is risen, yes and we are dying both things are true we have to live with that we have to…
between noon and three I sit quietly I waited for words but they chose to be quiet what is there to say? Peace, Milton
I get it. I understand why the disciples couldn’t do it. Think of what they had already been through. First, Judas left after a confrontation with Jesus that made it pretty clear the rest of the evening was not going to be a celebration. Jesus followed by offering bread and wine as both meal and…
I was looking for a poem to post the other day and found one titled “There, there, grieving.” I remember a friend whose father died many years before mine recalling a trip to a mall soon after his funeral where she was overwhelmed by the fact that everyone was acting like it was a normal…
bearings as soon as the fires went out we started looking for hope among the ruins sharing the same picture over and over of the cross beaming in the rubble I read that the towers were still standing that the organ had not been destroyed heard promise after promise of rebuilding even as the smoke…