Essence of the Season
It’s about the giving, really. So that all those holy folk who moan about the marketing and such can tend to miss..
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Seasonal hymns by J. Barrie Shepherd
Beloved Presbyterian poet J. Barrie Shepherd has crafted hymns for Advent, Christmas and welcoming in the new year set to familiar Christmas tunes..
Grave guard
Guarding a grave is hardly the most lively way to spend this early springtime night, or serve almighty Rome. Why would anyone..
What’s right about my church?
The very first, and best thing right about my church is that it’s not my church at all. If it was I’d..
Lux plus Veritas
We try to drive the dark away this shining season, string twining cords around our shrubs and trees, doors, windows, porches too,..
The Perseid Again (Mid-August 2016)
Not what I’d call a shower, exactly, but I did number twenty two of them, within one – past-midnight – hour, the..
Why I Still Go
For all their quirks and quibbles, all their foibles, squabbles, even downright donnybrooks, I find my people there. Recalcitrant, to be sure,..
Crossing The Bar (daily at the pool)
I am no longer diving; unwilling anymore to risk this way-too-well-worn frame to sudden impact, its old familiar pain, upon these..
Calling
Both less and more than family and good friends, still you belong there at the high moments and low, included in the..
Hold that balm in Gilead (Jeremiah 8:23)
There is a balm in Gilead, or so we love to sing in church. Yet the prophet raised a question, not an..