Dear Beloved — made from stardust, On Ash Wednesday morning I had the privilege of marking foreheads with ashes at the church coffee bar — preschool teachers hurrying between classrooms, parents wrangling children, members stopping on their way to work. One by one I traced the cross and spoke the ancient words: “You are a […]
Persistent Resistance Matthew 17:1-9, Ephesians 6:10-20 Think for a moment about a mountaintop experience in your own life. Maybe it really was on a mountain, standing at the summit after a long climb, the air thinner and the horizon wider than you imagined. Or maybe it was not a mountain at all. Maybe it was […]
John 2:1-11, Isaiah 25:1-8 We had already made the trip down to the well more times than I could count. Back and forth. Back and forth. The wedding had been going for days, with laughter, music, and dancing in the courtyard. Then the whisper started moving through the servants before anyone else knew. They were […]
Dear Beloved, Each February, Valentine’s Day invites us to pause and think about love. We see it in cards exchanged, notes written, candy shared, and small gestures of affection offered to one another. Beneath those familiar traditions is a deeper question worth asking: where did Valentine’s Day come from, and what does it have to […]
Seasoned to Shine Matthew 5:13-16, Ephesians 4:1-16 In our first scripture lesson, when Jesus calls his followers the salt of the earth, we might hear it as faint praise. Today, when we describe someone as “salt of the earth,” we usually mean they are good, honest, dependable, down to earth people. It is a compliment, […]
