This Christmas I received as a gift the book Organic Prayer by Nancy Roth. This intriguing book on contemplative prayer uses images such as gardening and soil preparation to talk about the spiritual life. The author portrays a form of prayer in which we cultivate the earth around us and the earth in turn cultivates [...]
“Let There be Peace on Earth, and Let it Begin with Me” Several weeks ago we sang that great piece, “Let There be Peace on Earth, and Let it Begin with Me,” and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. We’re coming into the Advent and Christmas season when we will often sing, say, [...]
“Yesterday’s News” On the Monday following Easter, I was in my office trying to catch up from the whirlwind of Holy Week. The church office was busy with attending to Easter details like attendance data from the Holy Week services, filing bulletins, and recording the names from the communion cards. I uploaded a few photos [...]
Yesterday I made soup for our Trivia Nite at Zion. It was chicken noodle and if I do say so myself it was pretty great. But I will also have to say that it violated the new sodium guidelines put forth in a recent report by the federal government. In that report we hear the [...]
Last week I heard someone on the radio quoting Og Mandino. It really took me back to my days in retailing. You may recall this best-selling author of “The Greatest Salesman in the World”, popular in the 70s. Some of his teaching was loosely based on Christian principles; but it was primarily a distillation of ancient [...]
Have you ever wondered what the pastor looks like when she gets home on Christmas Eve? Now you know! The dogs are pretty pooped, too!
The craziest Christmas I ever spent was at York Hospital. I was the chaplain resident assigned to the psychiatric unit. What a year and what an education. Among so many stellar memories, my most cherished are those of Christmas Eve 1995. Most of the patients on the voluntary treatment side had gone home, and so [...]
The following represent what we see as new frontiers for our church. At our Annual Meeting this coming Sunday, these are the points I hope to discuss and lift up as ways to focus our mission and ministry efforts. 1. South Mountain Partnership: http://southmountaincli.blogspot.com/ This partnership, formed under the auspices of the Dept. of Conservation and [...]
There are some lessons I simply never seem to learn. I was a children’s chaplain for 7 years, and have been in parish ministry for more than 7 years, and I still use metaphor and abstract images in children’s sermons. I know the developmental stages of children. I know that they are literal thinkers until age [...]
Monday and Tuesday of this week I spent at Lancaster Theological Seminary at the annual Church and Ministry Convocation. This convocation attracts church and ministry committees and conference staff from New York to North Carolina. It is always wonderful to be back at my alma mater, and I always come away changed in some way. [...]