spectator sport It has only been a hundred years since we began to see a spectator as one detached from their subject for many centuries to observe meant to watch and behold you didn’t have to be on the field to attach to what was going on which makes me want to claim the title…
table talk we sat around tables in the church basement we call fellowship hall sharing a potluck supper that turned out to be an abundance of bread on the table were sheets holding definitions of theologies of communion our topic for the night we read the paragraphs and then we told stories sharing a meal…
I chose a passage today that doesn’t make the Lectionary but has a lot to say in these days. These three verses from Luke hold two parables that say a lot in three sentences. _________________________ One of the things I like about our ecumenical Ash Wednesday service are the mini homilies each of the pastors…
time piece some time in the night we will rob ourselves of an hour of sleep so that we can save daylight making some vague promise that the hour saved will be kept safely and returned in the fall a story that only works if we are looking at our wrists rather than the heavens…
liminality how can two months ago feel like history? what was is long gone what’s next is not yet here our country is falling apart like a poorly built rocket we are left to wait and hurt and not know what comes next but something’s coming the way things are is not sustainable arrogance and…
“And, when all else fails, we sing ourselves sane.” — Barbara Holmes One of the things I’ve come to believe after nine years in Connecticut is the people who built the roads in this state never imagined that people would want to go from east to west. They made it fairly easy to get from…
Ash Wednesday is a busy day in the life of a part-time pastor, and by that I mean I worked a full day. My morning at work started with talking to a woman whom I met when we invited a local dog shelter to share in our Blessing of the Animals. Actually, I met with…
friday night lights at the funeral home on a friday evening one of the speakers quoted Mary Oliver “four small stones hugging each other” an image of love in a roomful of loss the one who just lost his husband took the words in with the rest of us and then stood up to say…
affirmation season the best part of deacons’ meeting on the night after the Oscars was when one said, “how long has it been since we told the staff they were doing a good job?’ after a short silence another replied, “it’s always a good time to say that” someone else volunteered to send cards none of…
I know I was not the only preacher who mentioned that we are close to the four year anniversary of the beginning of the Big Lockdown. That, along with the scripture passage, got me thinking about befores and afters. ______________________ Before and after. The two words are often used together to describe a change or…