Oddly enough, during this quarantined time, I have lost sight of Sabbath. How is that possible? In typical times, I am often going in a thousand different directions, but in...
The main character in John’s story is known by his nickname, “Doubting” Thomas. Read the story again. Read it carefully. Read it not for what you want the story to say, but for what John is trying to say. When you do, you will see that Thomas is many...
Shirley Murray, a Presbyterian hymnwriter from New Zealand, died in January of this year. One of my favorite Murray hymns is based on an old aboriginal saying, “Touch the Earth Lightly.” In stanza one, she writes: “Touch the earth lig...
There is something terribly elusive about Easter. We are familiar with the tough terrain of Holy Week, its betrayal and denial, duplicity and public execution. No matter how boisterous our real or virtual Easter celebrations, we are far less familiar with...
The first Easter sermon was preached long before Mary stood weeping in the garden, long before a young man told grieving women that the Risen Jesus was awaiting them in Galilee, long before Thomas was out running an errand when the Risen Jesu...
When I think of Easter, I think of exactly what it looks like right now outside Cove Presbyterian Church, just south of Charlottesville, Virginia – redbuds in full bloom, daffodils decorating the lawn, an orchestra of bees pollenating almost every...
Anne Lamott, Presbyterian ruling elder, novelist, and remarkably free spirit grew up in anything but a religious home. That sets the stage for when she writes:
Some of you were taught to pray at bedtime with your parents, and when I spent...
Text: Ezekiel 37: 1-14 Can these bones live? That is the question that God asks the prophet Ezekiel when his fellow Jews are quarantined in Babylon, isolated from friends and family, forced to assimilate or to drown in despair.
