I am going to be preaching several times at the First Church of Christ, Congregational of East Haddam, Connecticut over the next few weeks as they line up an intentional interim and begin looking for a new pastor. It is a lovely congregation. I got to preach there a couple of times last summer. Here…
When it comes to the weekends where we spring forward and fall back, acting as though we can set time and tell time and save time, I think about youth camp years ago in Texas. One of the kids in the youth group lamented that we had to get up so early in the morning—breakfast…
I was in fourth grade at Lusaka International School. My teacher was Mrs. Reedy. One day she came to class with a new book called A Wrinkle in Time and she said she would read to us at the end of the day if we finished our work. All it took was one afternoon of…
Quinn, the storm, has been making its way across America and gets to the East Coast early tomorrow morning, which set me thinking about storm songs, mostly from a metaphorical sense. I couldn’t help but begin my soundtrack for the storm with Kris Kristofferson’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)” Dougie…
spring training south of here the boys of summer are planting the seeds of spring, thawing out their throwing arms, weeding out errors, practicing and pitching, stealing a little extra daylight each evening before the month is out they will teach us, again, how to tell time, how to make a moment last forever, how…
First Annual. There’s no such thing. You can have a “first” something—an inaugural event—but it isn’t “annual” until there is at least a second one. You may intend for it to happen every year from the very first time you do it, but it’s only annual when it has happened before. On Friday, March 3,…
Late Monday afternoon, Ginger and I drove to New Haven so I could have an MRI. The asymmetrical nature and rapidity of my hearing loss over the last year caused my audiologist to send me to an ENT doctor, who decided to do the scan just to make sure we weren’t dealing with tumors or…
As Ginger and I traveled home from my father’s funeral, we tried to imagine what life would be like for my mother who had lost her traveling companion of almost sixty years. They loved being together. It was their favorite thing. Then we tried to imagine what we would do without each other. It was…
I preached this morning at United Churches of Durham, Connecticut as a part of a pulpit exchange between our church and two others. My sermon is my offering for today. “An Unreasonable Request”—Mark 8:31-38 At the risk of bringing up painful memories for some of you this morning, I invite you to step out of…
Last night I went to an ecclesiastical council, which sounds as though I should have been in a fancy robe with a funny hat, but in the United Church of Christ it simply means a gathering of people from the churches in our association to approve someone for ordination pending a call. The candidate told…