12/07/2025

Remembering the Sacred Presence of

the One Who Dwells Among Us

by Joyce Rupp

May we look for your goodness in people who seem least likely to carry your love.

May we behold your radiance in ones we quickly pass by at home or work.

May we discover your love in our deeper self when we feel unloving and irritable.

May we embrace you in the persons whose faithfulness we take for granted.

May we see your empathy and those serving the wounded of the world.

May we recognize your courage in the valiant people who speak out for justice. 

May we notice your non-judgmental acceptance of those who keep an open mind.

May we search for your gentleness when it is covered with harshness in another.

May we observe your generosity in every gift we receive, no matter how small it is.

May we reveal your mercy when we pardon someone for having turned against us.

May we welcome your joy in the delightful voices and happy play of children.

May we convey your compassion when we visit those with illness and poor health.

May we detect your patience in those who put up with our impatience and hurry.

May we unite with your peace hidden beneath the layers of the world’s disharmony.

11/30/2025

Wishing everyone a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving this week. May you and your families feel surrounded by the love of God as you gather around whatever table you find yourself a part of this year.

Blessings #29

by Sharon Bridgforth

Remember

you are not poor.

Your wealth is Infinite.

It is ever present.

It cycles and circles and ebbs and flows

and shows itself in traditions

in food

in music

in health

in relationships

in creativity

in passion

in curiosity

in laughter

in your finances

in the children

in animals

in learnings

in Spirit

in Nature

in the prayers paving the road you walk.

Relish the Journey

11/23/2025

     My life has always had a lot of transition. It’s one of the things that pastor’s kids and military kids have in common. Moving from place to place, meeting new people (and losing them too), and constantly having to learn the new procedures and expectations of new schools, neighborhoods, and even churches. As a kid, I dreamed of a day when I could grow up and choose my own home and pattern of living. I was going to buy a big house with a bunch of land in a community I loved, and I was just going to stay there forever and never move again! I just wanted to find that perfect place where I belonged. A place that God would pronounce as my forever home. However, life, as they say, is what happens when you are making other plans, and it is clear by the fact that in the last 5 years (well into my adulthood) we have moved 3 times that God had other ideas for my life. 

     Over the years, I have instead found myself learning about the practice of making home wherever I find myself. Of practicing hospitality even when I am the stranger and the newbie. It is an act of faith on my part. A faith that even as I am making a home for myself in a new place, I am also making a home for God there, too. It is a spiritual practice of attempting to embody the face of God for others who might also find themselves in a season, or lifetime, of wandering. To be the hands and feet of Christ in whatever neighborhood or community I find myself.

11/16/2025

On Dunino’s Kirk

A path leads to Dunino’s Kirk,

Overgrown with branches

       trying to pull you back,

You can travel by the main road, of course,

But it seems harder to reach the Kirk that way.

It is a wee place of piled stones

On foundations laid eight hundred years ago,

Before we were even conceived.

The stones are still older.

A Druid site was here I’m told

Before the Christians came

The Stones remember them still

Those cruel sons of nature.

Their stones stand now in the Kirk wall

Incised with Celtic crosses,

Sanctified with baptismal water,

Long since returned to the earth.

The sanctuary remembers its lost saints

With broken notches in the facing wall

Opposite the prayer desk

Knox’s faithful sons stand in inscribed rows.

Its current son goes about in kilt and sporran

With a dirk in his sock.

He is a Scot to the skin

Even under his ministerial robes.

It is now past four hundred years

Since men first drank at the Reformer’s Well.

The Kirk has stood and spoke its gospel

To those rude farmers.

It is the village Kirk.

It will not grow.

It will not die.

It is content to be faithful.

                       ~ L. Spencer Spaulding

11/09/2025

I use my various coffee mugs as memory prompts. Every morning, I choose one that brings a memory of a person, place and time, or an idea I need to reflect upon. Some are funny and cheer up my day. One reads, “Happiness is a cup of coffee and a good book”. I am looking for one that says,  
“All I need is a book and a good cup of coffee.” Silly, I know, but it makes me chuckle.

   One says, “Blessed” and another reads “Let it go.” When I first saw it, I imagined that it meant let go of things like anger, or past hurts, or revenge. I was thinking that the phrase “let it go” was about releasing all the pain and problems of the past. But lately as I have contemplated my retirement, which is fast approaching, I have thought about “Let it go” from a different vantage point. Now I know that I must let go of a role in a congregation I have come to love. My wonderful experience of working as your pastor is the opposite of any painful experience of the past. It is rather a treasured, even sacred time which is among the treasures of my life.

   The future for me and for all of you is in the loving hands of God and we can rejoice at what has been and rejoice at what will yet be.  The path of God’s blessing is still before us as it always will be.

11/02/2025

This is the month of Thanksgiving. It is Harvest-time’s end.  As the hymn, Come Ye Thankful People, Come states it, “All is safely gathered in ere the winter storms begin.” Many of the leaves have fallen, and the corn and grain have been harvested.  “Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.”  For some this is a time that can seem a depressing end of the year.  So a time of expressing the goodness of the preceding year and celebrating the abundance of God’s blessing with the savory and sweet tastes of that abundance is quite appropriate, even if the table is groaning from that abundance as we ourselves may also be. 

     Celebration is a gift from God which we share with each other reminding us we need not fear the winter’s blast in the warmth of the Heavenly Father’s love. It is a time of sharing, an opportunity to care for those who may be in need, and to plan to help beyond this season when the real needs may be manifest.  This year with rising cost of groceries and other necessities there will be more hungry people among us than perhaps in recent memory. The richest among us will fare alright while Jesus’ words, “the poor will always be among you,” are going to  be proven yet again. The gospel of Jesus Christ is aimed at the whole person with the goal that all persons may be fully whole.

     I am thankful when I am able to share even a cup of water in the name of Jesus. I remember, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me.” I have never done as much of this as I should have, but every year Thanksgiving reminds me to consider deeply what I have done for others.

10/26/2025

While I was taking a break from clearing out my office at the church, I found a copy of a collection of early post-New Testament writings called The Apostolic Fathers. These are writings by largely second century followers of the first century Apostles and leaders. One of the writings was from Clement, Bishop of Rome from A.D. 92-101. It is a letter to the church in Corinth. Many years earlier, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth to address the disunity and problems in the congregation. Apparently, they had heeded Paul’s instruction and solved the problems. The result was a very long and effective ministry with a good reputation. Unfortunately, jealousy of the leadership had again resulted in conflict and disunity. In the letter called “First Clement”, the bishop writes to help deal with the problems, reminds them of the dangers in disunity, and makes recommendations for solutions to the conflict. As I was rereading the letter, I noticed the remarkable references to scripture in both Old and New Testaments.  The tone is firm, but loving and pastoral. We have little other information about the disunity or if the bishop’s admonitions were followed, but the spirit of the letter is supportive and obviously expects a positive response. Even early on, there were difficult times for the growing church, but faithful leaders and God’s grace was present. As it was, so it still is now.

10/19/2025

    Scripture says we are to “pray without ceasing”.  I wondered for a long time how that should be understood. There are few things that I do without ceasing. My heart keeps on beating without ceasing. Even when I am sleeping, my brain keeps on working and will wake me if I stop breathing. However, I am not really conscious that these things are happening.

    Prayer would seem to involve some engagement, some thought. How can it be unceasing? Perhaps prayer is also about what direction I am facing. I am not always conscious that God is present, but I know that God is always there. If my whole life is turned in His direction, He is always present with me and I am always present with Him. It is not so much that I am conscious every moment of his closeness, but I am always connected to Him. Over short moments I can concentrate on prayer, but even in the long view my attitude and intention is prayerful.

    Perhaps praying without ceasing is not about concentrated prayer but rather an attitude that is constantly turned toward God in every moment, conscious and even unconscious. That kind of prayer I might be able to do without ceasing.

10/12/2025

Scripture says we are to “pray without ceasing”.  I wondered for a long time how that should be understood. There are few things that I do without ceasing. My heart keeps on beating without ceasing. Even when I am sleeping, my brain keeps on working and will wake me if I stop breathing. However, I am not really conscious that these things are happening.

    Prayer would seem to involve some engagement, some thought. How can it be unceasing? Perhaps prayer is also about what direction I am facing. I am not always conscious that God is present, but I know that God is always there. If my whole life is turned in His direction, He is always present with me and I am always present with Him. It is not so much that I am conscious every moment of his closeness, but I am always connected to Him. Over short moments I can concentrate on prayer, but even in the long view my attitude and intention is prayerful.

    Perhaps praying without ceasing is not about concentrated prayer but rather an attitude that is constantly turned toward God in every moment, conscious and even unconscious. That kind of prayer I might be able to do without ceasing.

10/05/2025

    Many of us have attacks of nostalgia when we remember past experiences. Sometimes our memories are a bit distorted by the passing of time. Without even meaning to do so, we may change our feelings, even about painful events. This can be an advantage when we understand a past event from a new perspective. Our earlier experience may be modified by our later insight and maturity. It can at times be the path to forgiveness when we see a past hurt in a new light.

    At other times we may cast a halo over the past that does not match its reality. The touchy grandmother may become, in our memory, the beacon of warmth and affection. Sometimes “the good ol’ days” may be more a figment of our imagination than an actual reality.

     Something similar happened to the people of Israel under Moses. God’s rescue of His people from their slavery in Egypt was a glorious tale of deliverance and joy, but those forty years of wilderness wandering caused them to look back at the time in Egypt with nostalgia. They complained to Moses remembering the leeks and garlic that they had eaten in Egypt and were dissatisfied with the ”boring manna”. They had forgotten the slavery, oppression, and horror, and dreamed of the “good ol’ days” in Egypt.  Let us not forget…their warped nostalgia cost them the Promised Land!

09/28/2025

    How does anyone remember the various passwords which current life now requires? There is a password on your TV and other ones for each TV service that is purchased. The cell phone requires a password. The bank account online requires a password. The hospital online account uses a password. Every credit card has a password. The computer requests a password. The continuous glucose monitor to check blood sugar needs a password. The minister’s registration has a password. There seems to be no end to the necessity of passwords for practically anything in American life.

    There is even an app where a person can store all their passwords, and “guess what”—it requires a password to open it when anyone has forgotten their other passwords.  Is there a password to get into heaven?  President Trump recently indicated that the Nobel Peace Prize might help him get him into heaven.

    Fortunately, there is no password for entering heaven except for the “word become flesh” Jesus Christ, as the Gospel of John states. That fact is all that is required.  If we are in a relationship with Jesus Christ we have a free pass into eternity even if we forget all those other passwords!

09/21/2025

Marking the seasons is a part of all our lives. Some sports mark the seasons: fall is football season; winter is basketball season; spring is baseball season; summer is track season. Now in the wide world of sports, there are other sports to include: soccer is year-round, it seems, as are golf and to some degree, tennis.  Winter and summer Olympics seem their own season. With the wide, online sports programs even what seem to non-fans as obscure sports are available for any avid fan.  Sports have always been a part of human life. Every culture has its own version of them, probably because humans love both competition and teamwork.  No doubt it is possible to become too obsessed with various sports to the detriment of other concerns. There are examples in scripture of various allusions to sports, even using them as metaphors for the spiritual life. We are enjoined to “run the race that is set before us.” The discipline and endurance that characterize athletic endeavors are appropriate examples for spiritual discipline and faithful endurance. Like physical exercise, spiritual exercise is better when we get up and do it, as opposed to just watching from the sidelines.

09/14/2025

For me, it is always difficult to leave a book unfinished, and I never turn to the end to find out “who done it”. I admit that some books really didn’t deserve my time.  There have been books, of course, that have so violated my moral sense that I dropped them after a few pages, but generally I slog on to the bitter end. There are a few books that I re-read on occasion. Some of that is nostalgia for the impact they made on me in their first reading. Some are so beautifully written that I never lose the pleasure of experiencing again how wonderfully-crafted they are. Others I return to because I keep gaining new insights as I read them.  Poems are like that.  For me, the Bible is especially like that.  Each time I read it new insights come to me.  I see things even in quite familiar stories and passages which I am sure I read before that I never noticed in earlier readings. Perhaps this is because every time I read the Bible I stand before it in some way as a different person than the time before. New experiences and new relationships have in some way reshaped me so that I can see and hear the story in a  new way. It makes each visit to the old book a new adventure.

09/07/2025

I have a category of irritation that I call “electronic nagging”. Every day my phone indicates how much time I have spent on my phone on the previous day.  I no longer take a print newspaper, as so much of my news coverage comes from various news sources on my phone.  I am shocked every day at my amount of screen time.  I know that my screen time is far lower than the average teenager, but it still seems high to me.   I know that I have better coverage than a single newspaper could provide, but I am noticing how much this has become a part of my regular life.  It was not that I made a conscious decision to spend more time on my phone.  The amount of usage has just crept up on me.  I know parents are concerned about how much screen time their teens consume.  Many parents have strict rules about the amount of time spent with even a schedule for outside time or meal time with no phone.  So how much screen time is appropriate for an old guy like me?  It certainly is not the central issue of life, but it concerns me that this happened without me making a conscious decision. It makes me wonder…what other things in my life have crept up on me without me actually deciding about them?  How about you?

08/31/2025

    Yesterday, August 30th, was my birthday. I am now 80 years of age—four score, to use the older phrase.  If I do not strike out in another 20 years, I will score 100. I don’t know that that is an attainable goal, but probably more likely than six score (120).

    I think I am wiser than I was at twenty, and while I have the occasional aches and pains, I do not feel like I am eighty years old. I am still interested in what my next years going forward will bring. My mind is still active and I am learning new things every day.

    I want to see what the next 10 to 20 year in our world will mean. Will we cure more diseases? Will we have colonies on other planets? Will wars come to an end? Will we conquer hunger in the world? Will we learn how to deal with the conflicts of life in meaningful ways? What new problems will we face, and will we be able to solve them? What will the world look like for my great grandchildren, if I have any?

    But most of all, I want to see what new things the Creator God will do to show his continuing love for His creation and who He will use to accomplish that new work. Our future is in the hands of God, and I would love to be around to see it.

08/24/2025

Some time ago I noticed a cell phone app which as I remember was called “Make a List.” I guess that could be convenient, but I already have a pencil and a note pad. In my futile attempts to organize my life and work, I have read a number of books on how to organize and improve personal and work efficiency. Many of them have provided hints (now termed “hacks”) that have proven helpful. As I reflect on those books, I realize that when all the details are combined, they basically say, “Make a list.” My problem is that I end up with “to-do lists”  with 30 items on them.  The advice is to choose a few critical items to focus attention on.

    The Bible has many valuable lists of what we should do to participate in the richness of the faith. One of my favorites is “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  (Eight items is still a big list, but what a wonderful set of good things on which to focus. It is one of God’s great to-do lists and one doesn’t even need to pay or even have a cellphone to do it!)

08/17/2025

What do you do with an old set of encyclopedias? They were valuable when the kids were still growing up before the internet and Google. Now, if you want to know a factoid, you can ask “Siri”, and get an immediate answer, but what if you want more than a short answer? Maybe there is a podcast with more information or a video on PBS. However, even these are only 30 minutes to an hour and the answers are hardly encyclopedic. At some point, it seems likely that you would need to check magazines, journals, and books, even in the digital age. An additional problem is, can you trust what is on the internet to be factual, let alone unbiased. With something like World Book or Encyclopedia Brittanica, one knew that the writers had actual expertise in the areas about which they wrote. Now, even your Weird Uncle Harry who is convinced that the earth is flat and that the pictures of the moon landing were done on a Hollywood soundstage can post their “facts” on the internet. Uncle Harry may be passionate about his views but that doesn’t make him correct. In the end, we still have to sort out the wheat from the chaff. We need to apply the good brains God gave us.
“’Come let us reason together,’  says the Lord,” is still valid in this age.

08/10/2025

The Church in Corinth seems to have had a variety of problems. Among them was a division about former leadership. One group claimed to be followers of Apollos, another group claimed themselves to be the Paul group. It sounds like the way some identify with one or another former pastor. “It was better under Pastor Brown!” they intone with sad faces. In Corinth it was becoming a claim of who is attached to the better authority. So Paul writes, “What then is Apollos? What then is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants or the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (I Corinthians 3:5 – 9) All this is worth remembering as we go forward in the next months and years. We all work together for the good of God’s Kingdom. We all are servants/workers, but it is God who directs, guides, opens and closes doors, sees the future, and knows the path we should take. We are just called to be workers together.

08/03/2025

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.    ~ Emily Dickinson

     I think I can grasp the meaning of this engaging metaphor in the first two stanzas of Dickinson’s reflection on ”Hope”. The third verse is more challenging. It continues the analogy but I am less certain what she is saying about hope in this last stanza. Is it that hope makes no demand of us, not even effort to maintain hope or is it that she finds hope of small comfort when faced with extreme need?

     What do you think she might mean? I know it makes me stop and think more deeply.  How would you define or talk about hope in your experience?

07/27/2025

    Do you recall advertisements for products containing lanolin? It might have been for hand lotion or hair cream or some other product to soften and sooth the skin. It has been a long time since I have seen any mention of lanolin.  There still are products available using lanolin. Lanolin is also known as “wool grease”. It is the waxy substance secreted by sheep to protect their wool. It is prone to skin irritation in some people.

     Shepherds who daily handled sheep in early times noted that the wool grease soothed hands even in the harsh environment of sheep herding. Gentle hands and soft voices do not startle skittish sheep.

    Perhaps, this provided part of the impetus for the Twenty-third Psalm. The image of God as the Gentle Shepherd guiding, soothing, and defending the sheep continues to inspire people in a world with little exposure to the day-by-day life of shepherds and sheep. Being compared to sheep, those wooly-headed wanderers, is hardly a compliment, but the picture of a caring shepherd still rings true even in a largely non- agricultural civilization.

    “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” still strengthens those of us who walk through dark valleys, when we trust the Great Shepherd of the sheep.