I’ve already promised my husband that the moment he is here to stay, pool maintenance becomes his responsibility. I never pictured myself as a person with the means to have a pool, nor does it make sense with our 1904 home, but there it is: an in-ground pool put in decades ago. And our kids… Continue reading Doing New Things: What I’m Learning from Pool Maintenance
It was late January 2021, after the inauguration but still in the depths of winter. We had received the DVD in the mail from Netflix of the new live action movie Mulan. Stefan and our oldest daughter watched it together Friday evening, but the younger one thought she might be scared, so she and I… Continue reading The Story of the Blue House
Leap-frogging technologies are a theme in our household conversations these days. When large swaths of people previously did not have access to certain improvements to quality of life, and a new way of creating access is developed to remove the barriers, people who never could get services in the first wave suddenly join the network… Continue reading Leap-frogging
A video of this sermon is available here. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 20th chapter, beginning with the 19th verse. When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear, Jesus came and stood… Continue reading “Embodied” sermon for 2nd Sunday of Easter
Perhaps where you currently serve in parish ministry is no longer the right place to stay, but there are no other options for calls in your geographic area, and you are unable to uproot and move. Perhaps you are part of the wave of pastors burnt out by leading through the pandemic, or your own… Continue reading Beyond Congregational Ministry: What Can a Pastor Do?
Preachers, I know how difficult it is to say something “new” about a text that recurs every year, the Sunday after Easter, with Thomas’ doubts echoing off our own. This year I am offering to preach that Sunday for you, in a pre-recorded online format, on the difference that embodied experiences of God make in… Continue reading I’ll Preach for You, the 2nd Sunday of Easter
The Cast Iron Skillet and Vocation The cast iron skillet has a permanent place on the front burners of our stove. I cook some part of our meal with it just about every evening. And never wash it. I believe on some level, this is why my husband got it – because he knew my… Continue reading Seasoned
This pandemic is definitely an era I am tempted to just keep my head down and “get through” by running on autopilot. This fall I felt like I was in near-constant motion to get through the pattern of every week: church communications, distance learning for the kids, editing, e-mailing, staff meeting, sermon prep and recording,… Continue reading Turning Off Autopilot: More Than Just Getting Through It
I used to believe that quality creative writing required empty time and space for my ideas to percolate. Sermons are a primary example of this for me. I tend to get irritable the day before I want to have a draft done if it is not yet in hand, unable to fully focus on anything… Continue reading Creating without Getting Away
Late last spring I wrote about 3 values for liminal times for congregations, based on my experience as an intentional interim pastor. I was trying to frame the stressful adaptation to the pandemic as an opportunity for congregations to learn and grow. Now emerging from the post-Christmas stupor, we are most certainly tired of stretching… Continue reading The Freedom of an Interim Leader
