“Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’” John 20:24-25 “Gathered together [by the Sea of Tiberias] were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin,…
What do you do when you feel that life is spiraling out of control (or rather, when you are)? For most of my life, whenever I’ve faced tough times, I’ve simply resolved to try harder, to push myself through the difficulties, to do everything possible to regain control and forge ahead. I’ve done this with things big and small, from work challenges to book club reading assignments. I’ve also treated Lent this way. I’ve set myself goals—things to give up,…
I have a confession—I don’t mind knowing the end of a story before I’ve finished it. Sometimes, knowing how a book will turn out allows me to better enjoy the plot’s twists and turns and character development. But on the Second Sunday of Lent, that wasn’t true at all. The Genesis reading from Chapter 15 is a familiar text, full of beautiful words. God reassures Abram that not only will God give him the land but descendants as numerous as…
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. (Luke 4:1-2) It’s Lent, and I really wish it wasn’t. Lent has always been a time for reflection, for taking stock of my life and my relationship with God. It’s the time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. But after several years of pandemic, too many ups and down of daily life,…
Today is the Winter Solstice; tonight is the longest night of the year. And this year, more than any other, I find myself sitting with the symbolism of darkness and light, sitting and wondering what will come as tomorrow the light grows stronger and longer. For much of this year, for much of the past few years, darkness has seemed to rule. Friends and family were lost to death from the disease we tried so hard to avoid, and the…
It’s a new church year in a new church. But even though the year officially started with the First Sunday of Advent, for me it started on October 31st when I celebrated Reformation Sunday for the very first time. It was a beautiful and bittersweet milestone in my life that I never expected would happen. There was a brass ensemble calling us to worship; the choir (which I joined even before filing my new member registration) sang two perfect hymns,…
What does it mean to find favor with God? Do you feel that you have found favor with God? Sometimes, it is easy to believe that God favors us. Usually that is when life is going well, when our troubles are few and our blessings are many. But what do we think when life is hard, when troubles are many? This year, it’s often been hard to believe that we have found favor with God, because life has been more than…
I’ve been trying to write for three months now. But the words just wouldn’t come. Plenty of things have popped into my head, whispering, “Write about this . . . or this,” but when I sat down and tried to write, I couldn’t string together more than a sentence or two. For a while, I told myself that I was just “in transition,” “trying to adjust,” and as soon as things “settled down,” I would find my voice. So I…
A couple of weeks ago, my family was seated around the kitchen table, looking at the newspaper. “Can you believe the story about the murder hornets?” my husband asked. He can never read the paper without making it into a conversation starter. “Oh no,” my daughter said. “First the plague, then murder hornets. What’s next, locusts?” “Oh, we’ve already got those too,” I piped up, having read the story about Africa’s problems with locusts earlier in the month. “Double oh…
I see the Easter Season in a whole new way this year. In the past, I’ve focused entirely on the joy of the resurrection. Easter signaled the end of sorrow and fear, the end of deprivation and limits. It was a time to celebrate, to gather with family, to spend a lot of time in church. Alleluia–He is Risen! This year, with the coronavirus pandemic, there was no end to sorrow and fear, no end to deprivation and limits, little…