Good morning... On Sunday at church, I noticed a left-handed first grader filling out a coloring sheet entitled "Things I like to do in winter." After the service, I asked a staff person in the Children's Ministry if I could have a copy of the coloring sheet to use with our first classes of the semester. We are [...]
Good morning... As I sit beneath the growing weight of our now 40 lb. pup, Cami, I think about Philip Yancey and his wife of 55 years. My prayers go up like incense on their behalf as they drop from the public eye to work on their daily life, a life broken by his eight year affair. In [...]
Good morning... We are on the cusp of a new semester. Cusp. I love that little word. A point of transition between two different states. On the verge of what comes next. An interval of time just before the onset of something new. Brink. Edge. Threshold. This week, as we begin a new semester of learning in our [...]
Good morning... Much of this season we have spent stuck in a soupy, cloudy haze. Unable to see our collective truth clearly, the human experience of many has matched the gloomy weather. The characteristic blue sunny skies of the south have been covered over by grey. With sunshine feeling rare, I have missed the patches of winter light [...]
Good morning... What Is Your Star Word? we asked in yesterday's post, a single word guiding you into the living presence of the Christ child, Emmanuel, God-with-us. For 2026, my star word is SIMPLIFY. The Dictionary.com definition reads: "to make less complicated, clearer, or easier." Clarify. Cut down. Reduce. Shorten. Streamline. SIMPLIFY. We live in a complicated world [...]
Good morning... On January 6th, on the twelfth day of Christmas, Epiphany is celebrated annually. Epiphany commemorates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child and the revelation of God the Son experienced as a human being. We read the story at church on Sunday. As I revisit Matthew 2:1-12, here are the verses that stand out [...]
Good morning... I met a poem this weekend that whispered to me about the consistency of life, year by year by year. Our high hopes are laid to rest in the soil of our common ground, and the low lows are lifted up as fodder for our creative connection. ****** "This was the year that was not the [...]
Good morning... This week, a friend from our Sunday afternoon group sent us a prayer written by Howard Thurman (November 18, 1899 – April 10, 1981). We, as a group, read Thurman's influential book Jesus and the Disinherited a few semesters back. Howard Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence has shaped the faith life of generations, and he was [...]
Good morning... As the first light of the new year crept through the slots in our bathroom shutters, I sensed the moon growing pregnant with full potential. Sure enough. The Wolf Supermoon (Wolf named for howling wolves in winter and Supermoon because it coincides with the Moon's closest point to Earth, appearing larger and brighter) will occur on [...]
Good morning... Happy New Year! There is no better way to recognize new phases of growth than to remember where we were while celebrating where we are. Two photos, set side by side, tell the story of natural, unstoppable growth. One is from October; the other was taken last night just after the ball dropped in Time Square. [...]
