Dear Members and Friends, … Which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider’s, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?                 -Louise Erdrich, 21st century If through [someone]’s life there is a little more love […]

Dear Members and Friends, I am the product of many whose lives have touched mine, from the famous, distinguished, and powerful to the little known and the poor.  -Dorothy Height, 20th century Happy Birthday!  It is a few days early, but this Sunday is the celebration of Pentecost, the day we remember the Holy Spirit of […]

Dear Members and Friends, Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone,  it has to be made, like bread;  remade all the time, made new. -Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Lathe of Heaven”, 20th century This Sunday is Mother’s Day.  It actually is not a special day on the Church calendar, but it is, for many, […]

Dear Members and Friends, And now we welcome the new year.  Full of things that have never been. -Rainer Maria Rilke, 20th century Simplifying and De-cluttering our lives are all the rage lately.  Beyond dealing with the great accumulation of “stuff” which most of us gather during our lifetimes there are even suggestions for applying this discipline to broader […]

Dear Members and Friends, If you don’t know where you are, you probably don’t know who you are. -Ralph Ellison, “Invisible Man” We won’t save a place we don’t love; we won’t love a place we don’t know; and we can’t know a place we haven’t learned -Baba Dioum, Senegalese environmentalist, 1968 Earth Day was […]

Dear Members and Friends, How should one live?  Live welcoming to all. -Mechthild of Magdeburg, 13th century Christian mystic It sounds so easy, doesn’t it?  Sort of like, “What is the greatest commandment? Love God and love your neighbor.”  It sounds easy, and yet when you really begin to look at the implications and the application, these […]

Dear Members and Friends, When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.  -Lao Tzu, 6th century BCE We are only in the third week of Easter.  While we know Easter to be a season of new life and resurrection, we don’t often stop to think about the truth that for […]

Dear Members and Friends, What we call doubt is often simply dullness of mind and spirit, not the absence of faith at all, but faith latent with the lives we are not quite living, God dormant in the world to which we are not quite giving our best selves. -Christian Wiman, “My Bright Abyss: Meditation […]

Dear Members and Friends, When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.             -The Gospel according to Mark, 15:33 (NRSV) Because Good Friday is not about us trying to “get right with God.”  It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for […]

Dear Members and Friends, The cross reveals the sin of the world.            -Stanley Hauerwas, 21st century theologian/ethicist We are entering the Holiest Week of the Christian year.  Holy Week is a time of “walking in the shadows”.  It is a time when we remember the suffering and death of Jesus.  It is not an easy week […]